MANHATTAN BOOGIE-WOOGIE
— 1982
‘We had a project that got way out of hand’
‘Landscape present eight brand new titles combining exciting musicianship with the hottest technological advances in this, their latest production. Sit back in the comfort of your home and enjoy this impromptu performance.
‘You will hear the lush wonders of Peter Thoms on electronic and regular trombones, feel Andy Pask’s thundering bass, way-down-lo, and visualise Christopher ‘two-hands’ Heaton at the mighty keyboard console. Straw boss John L. Walters blows a mean computer and Lyricon over in the synthesized reed section while, sticks-a-blur, the legendary Richard James Burgess whips up a storm on drums electronica and computer.
‘The boys’ wide-screen vocal stylings add the final kaleidoscopic brushstrokes to these seven dramatic miniatures.’
Original liner notes by Morgan Soames, Bern, March 1982
Produced by Landscape for Event Horizon Enterprises
‘The title track was inspired by the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos …’
Landscape’s third album was the result of some intense co-writing sessions involving the entire band. The title track was inspired by the wartime Manhattan Project at Los Alamos – devised to develop nuclear weapons – led by J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Other songs dealt with identity, betrayal, misleading advertising and inequality, break-ups, bust-ups, toxic masculinity, mental health, politics, good and evil. The albums was recorded on sixteen-track analogue machines and employed the band’s expanding arsenal of computers, synthesizers and electronic percussion alongside some fiendish studio performances.
When a beautiful collage cover by Peter Blake was unwisely thrown out by the record company, Mr Ian Wright was called in swiftly to design its replacement, using photos taken by Brian Aris.