“In the beginning there was rhythm,” vocalist Ari Up chants from the beginning to end of the song. Taken from the last of their Peel recording sessions, this Slits staple is expanded to the massive tribal stomp that the original, at the featherweight of five

minutes, truly wanted to be. Needed to be. The all-female quartet go beyond the original goal of the girls on this dubbed-up The Slits first album. The bass bounces and weaves while staying the course, drums pump a 4x4 time so consistent in its ass-shakin' ability it posseses a certain militancy, guitars cut rather than sing and a pogoing pixie chants and screams to the audience as though her songs were threats. And if ever there were poster children for that formula, The Slits were they. And better than anyone else of their ilk. In this live version of their now oft sampled song, they start to tear away from that established blueprint. Their tight structure swells and tears at its side, a milkweed bursting in a heavy wind. They circle, yelling and yelping that the face of God is rhythm, as are bouncing knees of a schoolchild on the cross-town bus. The frequency grows louder as notes are jammed into one another and the urgency in their voices surfaces. And just before the song collapses from weight and of exhaustion, screams go up loud into the studio rafters. And the emptiness of those echoes the answer to the unasked question: if rhythm is the beginning, then what's the end?