In 1995, Sony Music International, in association with Toto‘s representation Fitzgerald-Hartley, issued a powerful comeback campaign directive for the band; the first result was “Tambu“… Inspired by the band’s fascination in invented word-hybrid… “Something which could mean something brand new unto itself,” a cross between “taboo” and tamboe, a percussion instrument favored by bandmember Simon Phillips.
Tambu – the album – was a conceit born of a love for pulp-fiction covers and tawdry bedside reading. The album concept, devised by Eric Scott and Doug Brown (WorldWest Communications), involved a period juke joint setting, in which the band were to be filmed and photographed while performing, for both their album photography and music video “I Will Remember”… The design of the sleeve itself was a laborious affair, involving the creation of a custom typeface “5 4 0” (a distressed variation on Caslon) and many coffee-stained and soiled pages of a lyric booklet; representing the innards of the same pulp novel…
(© 1995 | Sony Music International | Columbia COL 662382)