ZANG TUMB TUMB DISCOGRAPHY “…which deny the freedom of the flesh…”

GRACE JONES

SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

GRACE JONES

SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

a biography

Produced by TREVOR HORN

Assisted by S.J. Lipson

engineering and synclaviar programming: Lipson

(The synclaviar was used extensively during the compilation of this biography: acknowledgement to New England Digital)

Written by Bruce Woolley, Simon Darlow, Stephen Lipson and Trevor Horn

Contents THE RHYTHM IN 8 BITS

1 Jones The Rhythm

2 The Fashion Show

3 The Frog and The Princess

4 Operattack

5 SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

6 The Crossing (ooh the action…)

7 Don’t Cry — It’s Only The Rhythm

8 Ladies And Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones

SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

Work all day

As men who know

Wheels must turn

To keep the flow

Build on up

Don’t break the chain

Sparks will fly

When the whistle blows

Never stop the action

Keep it up keep it up

Never stop the action

Keep it up

Work to the rhythm

Live to the rhythm

Love to the rhythm

Slave to the rhythm

Axe to wood

In ancient times

Man machine

Power line

Fires burn

Hearts beat strong

Sing out loud

The chain gang song

Never stop the action

Keep it up keep it up

Breathe to the rhythm

Dance to the rhythm

Work to the rhythm

Live to the rhythm

Love to the rhythm

You slave the rhythm

Contributors THE Z.T.T. art AND ACT SERVICE

Luis Jardim — bass guitar, percussion, vocal hi hat

J.J. Belle — rhythm guitar

S.J. Lipson — lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboards

Bruce Woolley — keyboards, backing vocals, guitar

Andrew Richards — keyboards

plus WASH THEM GO GO: Ju Ju (drums) Little Beats (percussion) Shorty Tim (percussion) and then The Wall Of Men featuring Glenn Gregory, John Sinclair and Gary Maughan

THE strictly unreasonable ZANG TUUM TUMB BIG BEAT COLOSSUS

Richard Niles — arranger

Frank Ricotti — percussion

John Thirkel — percussion

Guy Barker — percussion

Pete Beachill — trombone

Geoff Perkins — bass trombone

Jamie Talbert — alto saxophone

Phil Todd — alto saxophone

Stan Sultzman — tenor saxophone

Dave Bishop -tenor saxophone

Andy Mckintosh — baritone saxophone

John Pigneguey -french horn

David Smell — harp

Tessa Niles — backing vocals

The Ambrosian Singers — choir

John McCarthy — choir master

Gavyn — string leader

Breath, Blood and Voice: GRACE JONES

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GRACE JONES

SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

(Island logo)

(ZTT logo)

(Dolby logo)

1 Jones The Rhythm

2 The Fashion Show

3 The Frog and The Princess

4 Operattack

5 SLAVE TO THE RHYTHM

6 The Crossing (ooh the action…)

7 Don’t Cry — It’s Only The Rhythm

8 Ladies And Gentlemen: Miss Grace Jones

Against the snow an Incarnation of Beauty of tall stature. Whistlings of death and rounds of muffled music make this adored body rise, swell and tremble like a ghost: wounds, scarlet and black, erupt in this superb flesh. The colours natural to life deepen, dance and disengage themselves around the Vision in the making. And shudders rise and roar, and the frenzied favour of these effects becoming laden with the mortal whistlings and the harsh music which the world, far behind us, flings at our mother of beauty — she recoils, she draws herself up. Oh! our bones are invested with an amorous new body.

Rhythm is both the song’s manacle and its demonic charge. It is the original breath, it is the whisper of unremitting demand. What do you still want of me? says the singer. What do you think you can still draw from my lips?

“Exact presence that no fantasy can represent; purveyor of the oldest secret; alive with the blood that boils again and is pulsing where the rhythm is torn apart. How your singer’s blood is incensed at the depth of sound.”

Lacerations echo in the mouth’s open erotic sky — where dance together the lost frenzies of rhythm and an imploring im/mobility. The voice is slow, heavy, like the voice of a woman awakening from a time of betrayal. A voice like the slow rising, the slow opening of the dark. (…the impression is of moving in the shadows of syllables.)

Words are inside breath, as the earth is inside time … enslaved to its rhythms. The singer’s body finds its release in such confinement.

A voice of non-participation: not so much a song for any ‘you’ as the ruthless solicitation of disappointment, of disappointment’s immense pleasures … a maniacally glacial position taken up on the outermost limits of expectation. A perfect dissinulation: unabridged violence of the voice affirming a subjugated state. Annihilating rhythm.

Q And what happened?

I assumed an expression as clownish and wild as possible; I became a fabulous opera; I saw that everyone has a destined end to happiness; action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation. La morale est la faiblesse de la cervelle.

Q And what is happening?

Charm, science and patience. The most amazing atmospheric accidents. Delights!

Q And what will happen when you’re 75?

…I’ll still be putting on my make up.

…or in the brief glance, heavy with patience, serenity and mutual forgiveness, that, through some involuntary understanding, one can sometimes exchange with a cat.

I was amazed when I first saw Grace Jones. I could see how the average guy who was used to pretty girls could get scared by her physical appearance. It was so powerful. I photographed her in different positions. I cut her legs apart, lengthened them, turned her body to face the audience. Then I started painting, joining up the pieces to give the illusion that Grace Jones actually posed for the photographs. The pose was anatomically impossible. I had the idea of using Grace as the ideal vehicle for my work. She had inspired me. In an unexpected way Grace had come to obsess me.

extract from JUNGLE FEVER — Jean Paul Goude

“what heart shall I shatter.”

…THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ‘live’ as thoughtless reiteration of recorded moments and a wildly interpretative revision completely sold on the nature of performing, flaunting the luxury of being looked at. The Grace Jones show is just so showy I won’t convince you of the half of it. It rouses a multiplicity of hints and whispers contained under the sheets of smooth surface texture, embedded in her recorded self. It surprises and the prise is prize. It exposes and the pose is prose. It disgraces and the Grace is…

…preparing for perfection.

Front cover picture by Jean Paul Goude, Sleeve edited and designed by XLztt

Text: extracts from I. Penman’s ‘The Annihilation Of Rhythm’ — read on the record by Ian McShane

Interviews with the rhythm conducted seriously by Paul Morley and jovially by Paul Cooke (acknowledgement to Capital Radio)

Back cover picture by Anton Corbijn: Iceland 1982

The strictly unreasonable ZTTBBC were conducted and directed by Richard Niles Grace Jones appears by permission of Manhattan Records, a division of Capitol Records Inc.

An inevitable inspirational Island/Zang Tuum Tumb Co-Production recorded April–August 1985 (A.S.16)

William Juju House, Reginald Little Beats Daughtry and Timothy Shady Tim Glover appear courtesy of T.E.D.D. Records Inc.

Glenn Gregory appears courtesy of Virgin Records Ltd.

Unauthorised public performance broadcasting and copying of this record prohibited. All rights of the manufacturer and of the owner of the recorded work reserved.

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Published by Perfect Songs Ltd., Unforgettable Songs Ltd., Bruce Woolley Music/CBS Songs

℗+© ZZT/ISLAND 1985