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

WHO’S AFRAID OF THE ART OF NOISE

TITLES include BEAT BOX and moments in love. working titles for art of noise’s first album included ‘Beat Box’, ‘Worship’, Snapshots’ and The Movement Of Desire’ But the Art Of Noise suddenly realised…

(ZTT logo)

The art of noise visit the Thames

The art of noise hold a spanner

The art of noise visit the country

The art of noise visit the sea-side

The art of noise dance do and think

The art of noise say-what can be done?

The art of noise refuse to blame themselves

The Art Of Noise suddenly realised… what can we possibly mean by religion? The question has plagued and puzzled many but it is especially urgent today when all that has been done in the name of or for the sake of religion, most of which can hardly be news, is bought home to ever more people so much mor equickly and so more concretely than before. What, if any, of all this that goes by the name of religion is really religion? How much of it only uses religious feelings or beliefs or fears for non-religious ends, money and power above all…

The Art Of Noise suddenly realised… well, we can be unhappy. We can be unselfishly happy, brooding in our imagination and in our nerves on the anguish felt at this moment by someone else, and we can be selfishly unhappy, brooding upon our own miseries, apathies, worries, upon our own grievances and ailments, upon our own wrongs; or we can force ourselves to be happy.^[1]

The Art Of Noise suddenly realised… what could be seen in the evolution of record album covers which followed general patterns in advertising. At first (1950’s-mid ‘60’s), a full frontal image of the star dominated covers; later or more subtle, complex image was to be given by codes or design motifs which constitute the star’s image in his or her absence. This coincides with the decline of personality sponsorship in advertising and the rise of signs of connotation, often totally arbitrary to the function of the project. This evolution indicates the integration of rock music into the world of fashion and design.

The Art Of Noise suddenly realised… that waking in the middle of a dream, even the worst, one feels disappointed, even cheated of the best in life. But pleasant, fufilled dreams are actually as rare, to use Schubert’s words, as happy music. Even the loveliest dream bears like a blemish it’s difference from reality, the awareness that what it grants is mere illusion. This is precisely why the loveliest dreams are as if blighted. Such an impression is captured superlatively in the description of the nature theatre of Oklahoma in Kafka’s America.^[2]

The Art Of Noise suddenly realised… that he who seeks to mediate between two bold thinkers stamps himself as mediocre; he has not the eyes to see uniqueness; to perceive resemblances everywhere, making everything alike, is a sign of weak eyesight.^[3]

FEARS, GRIEVANCE, CODES, BLEMISHES AND REALISATIONS compiled in the capital between February 28th 1983 and April 1st 1984.

side one

A Time For Fear (Who’s Afraid)
Beat Box (Diversion One)
Memento
How To Kill
Realisation

side two

Who’s Afraid (Of The Art Of Noise)
Moments In Love
Snapshot
Close (To The Edit)

The NOISE was realised by The Art Of NOISE. Trevor Horn heard it and sang “It’s not unusual.”^[4] Paul Morley felt it and knew that “life does not live”^[5]. “Electronic equipment was used for the construction of the NOISE: Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, J.J. Jeczalik and Gary Langan appeared to handle this equipment. Zang Tuum Tumb Records conducted. Oh, oh, oh it’s magic!^[6]

Art Direction: XL of Poland Street and ZTT of Basing Street.

Front Photograph: Anton Corbijn. Back Photograph: a.j. Barratt Who’s Afraid Of The Art Of The Noise is dedicated to Henry Ford and of course Edward Albee — and their American Dreams.

This has been number 34 in Zang Tuum Tumb’s Incomplete Incidental Series. (In its American sleeve it is number 16: careful does it) “…it is the traditional task of the prophet to denounce systems of rule and life which deny the freedom of the flesh and imagination.”

(Island logo)

THE GENESIS OF STUPIDITY

The true symbol of intelligence is the snail’s horn with which it feels and (if Mephistopheles is to be believed)’ smells its way. The horn recoils instantly before an obstacle, seeking asylum in the protective shell and again becoming one with the whole. Only tentatively does it re-emerge to assert its independence. If the danger is still present it vanishes once more, now hesitating longer before renewing the attempt. In its early stages the life of the mind is infinitely fragile. The snail’s senses depend on its muscles, and muscles become feebler with every hindrance to their play. Physical injury cripples the body, fear the mind. At the start the two are inseparable.

The higher animals have earned their greater freedom; their mere presence proves that once feelers groped out in new directions and were not then withdrawn. Each of their species is a monument to countless others whose attempts to develop were doomed from the start, whom terror struck low the moment a feeler reached out in the direction of their development. The supression of this potential by the direct resistance of the natural environment is carried a stage further as internal organs begin to atrophy with fear. In every questioning glance of an animal there flickers a new form of life that could emerge from the distinctive species to which the individual belongs. It is not merely this distinctive character that keeps it within the shelter of familiar being. The might that glance encounters dates back millions of years. From time immemorial it has kept the creature at its appointed stage, and has constantly inhibited its initial attempts to progress beyond it. A preliminary groping of this kind is always easily thwarted; it is always backed by good will and faint hope but not by unflagging energy. When facing in the direction from which it is finally scared into retreat, the animal grows timid and stupid.

Stupidity is a scar. It can stem from one of many activities — physical or mental — or from all. Every partial stupidity of a man denotes a spot where the play of stirring muscles was thwarted instead of encouraged. In the presence of the obstacle the futile repetition of disorganized, groping attempts is set in motion. A child’s ceaseless queries are always symptoms of a hidden pain, of a first question to which it found no answer and which it did not know how to frame appropriately.’ Its reiteration suggests the playful determination of a dog leaping repeatedly at the door it does not yet know how to open, and finally giving up if the catch is out of his reach. It also has something in it of the desperation of the lion pacing up and down in its cage, or of the neurotic who renews a defensive reaction that has already proved futile in the past. If the child’s repeated attempts are balked, or too brutally frustrated, it may turn its attention in a different direction. It is then richer in experience, as the saying goes, but an inperceptible scar, a tiny calloused area of insensitivity, is apt to form at the spot where the urge was stifled. Such scars lead to deformities. They can build hard and able characters; They can breed stupidity — as a symptom of pathological deficiency, of blindness and impotency, if they are quiescent; in the form of malice, spite, and fanaticism, if they produce a cancer within. The coercion suffered turns good will into bad. And not only tabooed questioning but forbidden mimicry, forbidden tears, and forbidden rashness in play can leave such scars. Like the species of the animal order, the mental stages within the human species, and the blind-spots in the individual, are stages at which hope petered out and whose petrifaction demonstrates that all things that live are subject to constraint.

1. Goethe, Faust I (Walpurgisnacht): “…with its delicately groping face, it has scented me already.”

2. Cf. Karl Landauer. “Intelligenz and Dummheit” in: Das Nychoanalytische Volkshirch (Berne, 1939).^[7]

ZTTIQ2

ART OF NOISE DISCS…

Into Battle With (ZTIS 100)

Diversions 1&2 (ZTIS108)

Close (To The Edit American 7"

Beat Box American 7"

Close (To The Edit)/A Time To Hear (Who’s Listening) (ZTPS 01)

Working titles for the first Art Of Noise LP included ’Goose Jazz’^[8], ‘The Love Of Wealth’, ‘It’s Never Finished’ and ‘The Dialectic Of Tact.’ But The Art Of Noise suddenly realise… where everything is bad it must be good to know the worst.^[9]

Next…

Art Of Noise play ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’

And Then…

The Musical

And Then…

’Raiding The 20th Century.’

ABOUT THE ART OF NOISE…

Gary Langan often visits Australia… (keyboards)

Anne Dudley is interested in the clarient… (Keyboards)

J.J.Jeczalik is a fine cricketer… (keyboards)

Trevor Horn goes boating in Bournemouth… (keyboards)

Paul Morley read Rimbaud… (paper)

SING ALONG WITH THE ART OF NOISE (don’t be afraid)

A Time For Fear (Who’s Afraid)

now cry your heart out if you can over the ankles in snow and numb past pain
who’s afraid who is afraid
now there’s a funny thing
a time for fear who’s afraid
we’ll get used to it

(AON logo)

Beat Box (Diversion One)

you get to move on, see, do what I say
do this, don’t move
look lively when i say
say this, shut up
see, do what I say,
look lively^[10]

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Memento

since last september I’ve been trying to describe
something that can be heard
you never know
you do not do

How To Kill

the fox drags its wounded belly^[11]
the gorilla lay on his back^[12]
russia and america cicle each other^[13]
I have done it again

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Realisation

one duck stood on my toes^[14]
yam camdou
yan daba
camdoura
yan camdoura
a daba roudou^[15]

(AON logo)

Who’s Afraid (Of The Art Of Noise)

what question will unmask…
reveal to me no more
than what I know of you
you bright disguises^[16]

(AON logo)

Moments In Love

hours are a small thing
moments in love that drained
her that drained him^[17]

Snapshot

but crocodile tears are what you cry^[18]
who has the right?
and what else is wrong?

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Close (To The Edit)

your final breath
is in the air, pure white
and moving fast.^[19]
oh to be in England^[20]
the time is coming near
who’s afraid

ALL RIGHT OF THE MANUFACTURER AND OF THE OWNER OF THE RECORDED WORK RESERVED. UNAUTHORISED PUBLIC PERFORMANCE BROADCASTING AND COPYING OF THIS RECORD PROHIBITED.

(WHO’S AFRAID OF?) THE ART OF NOISE

1. A Time For Fear (Who’s Afraid)
2. Beat Box (Diversion One)
3. Snapshot
4. Close (To The Edit)

Produced by Art Of Noise

All songs written by Dudley, Horn, Jeczalik, Langan & Morley All song published by Perfect Songs Ltd./Unforgettable Songs Ltd.

©+℗ 1984 ZTT

ZTTIQ2

STEREO 33 r.p.m.

SIDE ONE

’A Time To Hear’

ALL RIGHT OF THE MANUFACTURER AND OF THE OWNER OF THE RECORDED WORK RESERVED. UNAUTHORISED PUBLIC PERFORMANCE BROADCASTING AND COPYING OF THIS RECORD PROHIBITED.

(WHO’S AFRAID OF?) THE ART OF NOISE

1. Who’s Afraid (Of The Art Of Noise)
2. Moments In Love
3. Memento
4. How To Kill
5. Realization

Produced by Art Of Noise

All songs written by Dudley, Horn, Jeczalik, Langan & Morley

All song published by Perfect Songs Ltd./Unforgettable Songs Ltd.

©+℗ 1984 ZTT

ZTTIQ2

STEREO 33 r.p.m.

SIDE TWO

’Who’s Listening’