Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer

Prince Charles and Grace Jones. -contributed

AVANT-GARDE singer Grace Jones, whose reggae-flavoured songs were once the rage in American and European clubs, is back with her first album in almost 20 years.

The album, Hurricane, is scheduled to be released on October 27 by the independent Wall of Sound Records.

The Spanish Town-reared Jones, now 56, told London's Guardian Unlimited newspaper that after she split with Chris Blackwell's Island Records in the mid-1980s, her music career stalled.

"It was very personal, but we both understood each other ... this doesn't work," she said of her relationship with Blackwell.

Jones said Hurricane promises more of the music that made her a hit with the 'out there' crowd in the 1970s and 1980s.

British musician Ivor Guest is the man behind Hurricane. Guest, 39, is a cousin of former British prime minister and statesman Sir Winston Churchill and Princess Diana; he is also Jones' lover.

He and Jones assembled an established production team for Hurricane. Brian Eno, known for his work with U2 and the Talking Heads, Wendy and Lisa, former collaborators with Prince, and Sly and Robbie, worked on the comeback disc.

Jones told Guardian Unlimited reporter Miranda Sawyer that some of the songs on Hurricane were inspired by her early years in Jamaica. One of the songs, William Blood, is in part, based on her father, the Reverend Robert Jones.

"The pulpit was his theatre," Jones said. Her mother, Marjorie, sang background vocals on the track.

New material

Hurricane is Jones' first album of new material since 1989's Bulletproof Heart which was distributed by Capitol Records. Her most successful years musically were spent with Island Records, responsible for breaking Bob Marley internationally.

Grace Jones moved with her family as a teenager to New York. After making a mark as a model, she used her robotic image to good effect as a singer.

Her flat-top hairstyle and off-the-wall fashions made her an underground hit in gay clubs throughout the United States and Europe.

Jones revisited her Jamaican roots in the early 1980s when she worked with the rising rhythm duo of Sly and Robbie on the Island albums Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing. The partnership produced dance hits like My Jamaican Guy and Pull Up to The Bumper.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jones appeared in hit movies such as the Bond flick, A View To a Kill, and Boomerang, which starred Eddie Murphy.