PPM post dated 19 January 2023, the first serious coverage of the forthcoming box set.

Last week I received an email from commenter Richard Anvil who managed to strike gold in his internet travels. We share many music obsessions and the great Technopop band Landscape was among them. He ran across a current Landscape website and on it was news of a BSOG that is forthcoming from the band. I spent the last quarter of the holy year of 1981 listening obsessively to “From The Tearooms of Mars…To The Hellholes Of Uranus.”

Landscape seemingly came from nowhere to be exactly the band I needed to be obsessing over in late 1981! Solid players [Jazz players, really] who were drenched in technology and using it to take their exceptionally witty music and ideas to their ultimate expression. Let’s put it this way: no other British band aiming at a Kraftwerkian target had a horn section. And this band had electric trombones and Lyricons!

And now word comes from the horse’s mouth that Landscape, in conjunction with Cooking Vinyl, have signed to produce a Landscape BSOG [5xCDs] this year called “Landscape-A-Go-Go” [what else] and it will contain all three of the band’s albums, in addition to single mixes, remixes, and live tracks and unreleased materials totaling 84 tracks. The crucial album “From The Tearooms of Mars…To The Hell-Holes Of Uranus” will also get a new LP pressing.

Landscape: Landscape – UK – LP [1980]

1 Japan

2 Lost In The Small Ads

3 The Mechanical Bride

4 Neddy Sindrum

5 Kaptin Whorlix

6 Sonja Henie

7 Many’s The Time

8 Highly Suspicious

9 Gotham City

10 Wandsworth Plain

Landscape: From the Tearooms Of Mars…To The Hell-Holes Of Uranus – US – LP [1981]

1 European Man

2 Shake The West Awake

3 Computer Person

4 Alpine Tragedy; Sisters

5 Face Of The 80’s

6 New Religion

7 Einstein A Go-Go

8 Norman Bates

9 The Doll’s House

10 From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars…To The Hell-Holes Of Uranus

Landscape: Manhattan Boogie-Woogie – US – LP [1982]

1 One Rule For The Rich

2 Bad Times

3 When You Leave Your Lover

4 The Long Way Home

5 It’s Not My Real Name

6 Colour Code [Tell Me Something New]

7 Manhattan Boogie-Woogie

8 Eastern Girls

As we can see, the three albums contain just 28 tracks, so this will be one of those very thorough projects with 84 tracks in all. I’m certain even the Landscape III singles will manifest here. It’s all a bit early for the gritty details, but fans can dream at this point, or they can sign up to the Landscape mailing list to get informed when the rubber is ready to hit the road. As I only have a handful of Landscape singles and 12″ers, I am absolutely ready for this one. Truth be told, I would buy it simply to hear the 12″ remix of “European Man” on CD! An extended remix I’ve been waiting to hear since 1981 and only came to know of in the 21st century, thanks to Discogs.