Landscape – 2 LPs on one CDs

From the Tea-Rooms of Mars … to the Hell-Holes of Uranus and Landscape

Sleeve note by Tony Bacon, 1992

Not only was 1979 the first cataclysmic year of Tory rule, but the year in which I got acquainted with Landscape. I thought Landscape would outlive the Tories, easily. No contest.

I’d met Landscape because I had this habit in the 1970s of going out to watch live music. There was nothing on television back then, either. I also happened to work on a magazine that dealt with musicians and musical instruments, and Landscape were without doubt an intriguing bunch of musicians. So I went to their gigs, and they wrote for my magazine. It seemed like a fair exchange.

John Walters wrote about his Lyricon, a wonderful piece of machinery that he put in his mouth in order to make synthesized wind music. This instrument was, he wrote, ‘even more mind-blowing than the pair of plastic “Mick Jagger Maracas” that engendered my career in rock music.’ On a more serious note, and quoting the Lyricon’s inventor, John concluded that ‘if the 1980s are to be the “most exciting decade in 200 years for instrument technology,” let’s hope the same will be true for music.’

A few months further into 1979 Richard Burgess penned a massive opus for the magazine on the fledgling linkages then being cobbled between drums and electronics. In the course of what I now know were prophetic words, Richard mentioned one of his favourite bands, the German technocrats Kraftwerk. This outfit’s influence on Landscape is noticeable, especially on the second LP. ‘At times,’ Richard wrote of Kraftwerk in 1979, ‘they manage to blur the demarcation between percussive, melodic and harmonic instruments,’ neatly summarising the appeal and importance of both groups.

Landscape had come together in 1974, after a few experimental line-ups followed meeting at a musical summer school in Wales. Landscape were drummer Richard Burgess, bassist Andy Pask, trombonist Peter Thoms, keyboardist Christopher Heaton and saxist John Walters. All right, it’s not a proper word: make that ‘sax player’. Actually sax, flute and lyricon player. And while we’re at it, the drummer played drum synthesizer, too. And the keyboard player had one of the new polyphonic synths. In fact, gradually, Landscape started to wire up every conceivable instrument to synthesizers.

If there was a new way of making music, Landscape were at the head of the queue for a demo. They helped develop Simmons electronic drums. They were the first people I knew to use the Fairlight CMI, a computer-based musical instrument which among other fixtures had this odd thing called sampling. Now sampling – the digital recording and storing of sound, and the playing back of the sound at will in modified ways – is today a hugely important constituent of everyday recording practice.

A few people misunderstood Landscape’s craving for new musical sounds. ‘The Weeklies’ (one of the more polite terms for the weekly music comics of the time) weren’t at all sure what to do with them. Were they a jazz-rock group, a pop band, new wave, punk, what? The put out a few EPs on their own label, and thus made the indie charts. But they could play their instruments. Well. ‘You can’t put them in that neat pigeon hole,’ admitted a frustrated Melody Maker scribe, with evident pain.

Back when the 1970s were itching to be the 1980s, Landscape also had the audacity to start using computers as part of the band. Well, it was obvious that would never catch on. But it made interesting copy, or so my editor said. To me, they just made interesting music. Simple as that.

And it should not go unmentioned that Landscape were without a guitar player. (Yes, that’s electronic trombone on ‘The Mechanical Bride’, believe it or not.) Guitarlessness came as a bit of a shock for the traditional rock audience, used to some goon grimacing at the front of the stage while stacked Marshalls steam behind. But with each member a potential soloist anyway, this was no loss to Landscape.

Landscape’s roots were in jazz. Not so much the searching, exploratory jazz of improvisation, but more the orderly and textured jazz of orchestrated composition. More Duke Ellington than Charlie Parker, I suppose. The first LP gives a better indication of this side of the band – there’s more ensemble brass, more conventional propulsion from the rhythm section, indeed more of an impression of a band playing in a studio. On the second LP Landscape became much more electronic and, crucially, feature vocals for the first time, and are prone to futuristic references and sci-fi collages.

And after all the computers, daft clothes and space-age frivolity, Landscape’s chief ability was to write and play good tunes. This compilation of their first two LPs bristles with the bloody things. They also arranged their instruments and sounds to play those tunes in a dead clever way. The result is, I believe, called good music – whatever the instruments used to make is, and in whatever decade you happen to hear it.

TONY BACON, 1992

Formerly the editor of Sound International, Tony Bacon is an author and editor whose wildly popular books include The Ultimate Guitar Book, London Live and Legendary Guitars, An Illustrated Guide. To our knowledge Tony has yet to write The Ultimate Trombone Book. You can read more of Tony’s articles via his website, tonybacon.co.uk