Is It All Over My Face – Loose Joints (1980)
My favourite dance record of all time isn't some cool cut of 60s R'n'B, or even a Northern Soul floor scorcher. It's an 80s New York disco record, written in E minor, and made by a classical cellist. The name on the label says Loose Joints, but the creative force behind it is Arthur Russell. This post is as much about that track as it is about Russell—and the world he came from.
Arthur Russell: From Cello Prodigy to Disco Pioneer
Born in Oklahoma in 1951, Arthur Russell was a cello prodigy who studied in San Francisco before relocating to New York in the early ’70s to specialise in electronic music. At that time, American academic music was still in the grip of serialism—a rigid, joyless dogma that stifled creativity post-WWII. Naturally, Russell clashed with his tutors.
He soon found a home at The Kitchen, an avant-garde performance space championing minimalism. As its musical director, he curated performances by Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Alvin Lucier, and even staged early gigs for Talking Heads and the Modern Lovers. Robert Mapplethorpe held one of his first exhibitions there.
He also programmed the Work in Progress for 21 musicians and singers by Steve Reich, which became Music for 18 Musicians, one of the most significant early works in modern minimalism, and a decisive break with the tyranny of serialism
Russell was briefly linked to Talking Heads, recording a demo of Psycho Killer with them. This is the nearest we have to that early Arthur Russell version:
He also led a new wave band called The Necessaries.
But by the late ’70s, he’d thrown himself into New York’s gay disco scene—a world that appealed to his love of minimalism and repetition.
Minimalism Meets the Dancefloor
Russell’s first major dancefloor success came with Dinosaur L, whose 1978 single Kiss Me Again was a massive club hit for Sire Records but failed to break into the mainstream.
He later formed Loose Joints, releasing seminal tracks like It’s All Over My Face, Pop Your Funk, and Tell You Today.
A Larry Levan remix of It’s All Over My Face, featuring a female vocalist, became a staple in gay clubs, and is one of the foundations of early house music.
Returning to the Dinosaur L moniker, Russell debuted 24→24 Music at The Kitchen in 1979—a disco-influenced composition with rhythmic shifts every 24 bars.
Very experimental, but incredibly funky.
A Voice, a Cello, and an Echo
In the 1980s, Russell began releasing music under his own name, including the singles School Bell/Treehouse and Let’s Go Swimming.
In 1986, he released what is arguably his masterpiece: World of Echo—an album of haunting cello-and-voice compositions processed through subtle electronic effects.
Not long after its release, Russell was diagnosed with HIV.
The Broader Tragedy: AIDS, Art, and Activism
To give an idea of the scale of AIDs in New York in the 80s and 90s these are deaths from HIV 1981 to 2000. The UK population grew from 57m to 65m over the period in question. New York city grew from 7m to 8m. If the numbers for NYC look shocking then you are reading them right.
Books like And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts chronicle the appalling government response—particularly from Mayor Ed Koch and President Ronald Reagan, whose homophobia and moralising delayed action, treatment, and funding. The result was widespread public distrust, which only worsened the spread of the disease.
Meanwhile, British public health efforts—like the “Don’t Die of Ignorance” campaign—were mocked at the time, but ultimately saved lives. Norman Fowler, then Health Secretary, fought hard to push those campaigns through. He remains an unlikely but vital public health hero.
Silence = Death
Faced with institutional indifference and media bigotry, it was the gay community—and particularly its artists—who led the fight. One of the earliest to fuse art and AIDS activism was David Wojnarowicz, whose Rimbaud in New York and Silence = Death became iconic.
Russell died in 1992, aged 40, from AIDS-related illness—poor, prolific, and largely unrecognised. Wojnarowicz died the same year. His ashes were scattered on the White House lawn in protest.
Legacy and Lessons
Over time, the cultural response to AIDS grew louder and more sophisticated—The Normal Heart, Angels in America, Philadelphia. These stories changed attitudes, not just toward the gay community, but within it.
Activists like ACT UP pushed for research funding and treatment access, laying the blueprint for future public health advocacy. The shift—from avant-garde artists to high-level lobbyists—was as strategic as it was emotional.
In 2014, the Red Hot Organization released Master Mix: Red Hot + Arthur Russell, a triple album of covers raising funds for AIDS research.
In 2023, Russell’s early composition City Park was performed at the New York City AIDS Memorial.
And We’re Making the Same Mistake Again
One of the most bitter lessons from the AIDS epidemic is this:
If you marginalise a group and then demand they change their behaviour, don’t be surprised when they don’t trust you.
Russell’s music wasn’t overtly political, but the circumstances of his life and death—and the rediscovery of his work decades later—make it deeply resonant. He refused to sit still: shifting names, genres, and formats, always revising, always pushing. That made him hard to market. It also made him timeless.