From: Al Crawford <awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
Subject: Review: Landscape - From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars + Landscape
Reply-To: Al Crawford <awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: The University Of Edinburgh - Department Of Computer Science
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 07:55:30 GMT
Followup-To: rec.music.misc



Landscape	From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars...To The	Mau Mau MAUCD 618
		Hell-Holes Of Uranus + Landscape

Total Running Time: 79 min 07 sec

	From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars...To The Hell-Holes Of Uranus

	1.	European Man				4:21
	2.	Shake The West Awake			3:24
	3.	Computer Person				2:58
	4.	Alpine Tragedy				1:36
	5.	Sisters					3:08
	6.	Face Of The 80s				3:26
	7.	New Religion				3:12
	8.	Einstein A Go-Go			2:59
	9.	Norman Bates				5:36
	10.	The Doll's House			5:23
	11.	From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars...		7:27
		To The Hell-Holes Of Uranus
		i)	Beguine			2:40
		ii)	Mambo			2:19
		iii)	Tango			2:28

	Landscape

	12.	Japan					3:12
	13.	Lost In The Small Ads			4:05
	14.	The Mechanical Bride			3:24
	15.	Neddy Sindrum				3:40
	16.	Kaptin Whorlix				3:46
	17.	Sonja Henie				3:28
	18.	Many's The Time				3:25
	19.	Highly Suspicious			3:36
	20.	Gotham City				3:37
	21.	Wandsworth Plain			3:03

Now this is something I'd like to see more often - a small label takes two
classic, if rather obscure, albums from the early 80s and puts them
together on a single CD. The result, the label can sell old product at full
price, and I get something I've been after on CD for ages. I'd certainly
like to see something similar done for New Musik at least.

Landscape were part of the first wave of synth pop bands (i.e. they were
around before 1980) but somehow seem to have missed out on the success that
most other acts fiddling around with synths from that period had in the new
romantic/synth-pop boom of 1980-1982. I'm not entirely sure why this is,
but it probably has something to do with the rather quirky nature of
Landscape's musical output.

The group were a five piece, consisting of Richard James Burgess,
Christopher Heaton, Andy Pask, Pete Thoms and John L Walters. At least
three of these went on to other things (well, I presume *all* of them did,
but I know about three :-)) with Burgess producing a number of other acts
including Spandau Ballet and Adam Ant, Pask moving into TV theme tunes (he
did the theme to the ITV police series "The Bill") and Pete Thoms making a
living as a session musician.

This CD includes their first two albums, _Landscape_ from 1979 and 1980's
_From The Tea-Rooms Of Mars...To The Hell-Holes Of Uranus_. These are on
the disc in reverse order for some reason, but I'll deal with them in
chronological order, starting with _Landscape_.

It's here that we see the roots of Landscape's sound - jazz inflected
instrumentals with plenty of synths and a strong brass section (Thoms and
Walters). Very busy and very melodic generally, but my enthusiasm for this
album is limited by my lack of enthusiasm for jazz in general. With all but
a few exceptions ("Japan", "Kaptin Whorlix") the music is generally a
little too laid-back and muzacky for me. It's only the tracks where the
bass or synth work provides a break from the incessant trombone that things
get interesting.

With the second album _From The Tea-Rooms_, Landscape found a more fruitful
direction, shedding most of the jazz stylings, adopting a more synth-pop
oriented sound and with Burgess adding vocals to his drumming. It has it's
faults - some of the electronic and synth effects are rather cliched in
their futurism, as are the lyrics, but that was a common fault at this
time. It also has some real strengths though, with the unusual instrumental
mix (not many synth-pop bands had a trombonist) giving them a distinctive
sound and Burgess's very solid percussion being the real stand outs.

"European Man" is a very classy piece of synth pop, with Burgess's punchy
percussion thudding along with a variety of synths and electronic effects
and Thoms's trombone driving away over the top. Burgess's vocals work well
too, being typical light electro-pop fare, a la Trevor Horn or Tony
Mansfield.

"Shake The West Awake" presents some amusing observations on the success of
the Japanese electronics industry, and seems to suggest the exact opposite
of their contemporaries Ultravox - while Ure and co suggest in "Western
Promise" that Japanese culture is being overwhelmed by the West, Landscape
suggests that perhaps the opposite should be happening.

"Computer Person" is a rather cutesy tinkly-bonk affair, with no lyrics as
such (just the title vocoded over the top) and a rhythm pattern that sounds
like it came off one of these wee toy keyboards (which it probably did).

"Alpine Tragedy" and "Sisters" run together. The first is a pretty synth
instrumental which gives way towards the end to church bells and chimes
which give the track something of a Christmas-y feel. This feel is shared
by "Sisters" which is an up-tempo instrumental with more of that wonderful
solid Burgess percussion and some nice electric trombone from Thoms.

"Face Of The 80s" is probably the most conventional synth-pop track here,
with a catchy melody, and Burgess overdoing it on vocals, with some vocal
harmonies in the chorus. Perhaps still rather 70s compared to the sort of
music others were putting out at the time, but fun anyway. This is followed
by "New Religion", another rather tinkly-bonk instrumental that seems to
represent a halfway house between the jazz-tinged material of the first
album and the more obvious synth-pop of this album.

At long last we reach their one big hit, the apocalyptic paranoia of
"Einstein A Go-Go". There's something rather disturbing and anarchic about
this track, from the intro (which consists of the replies the band got when
they tried to 'phone the US President, whoever was in the Kremlin at the
time, and the Ayatollah Khomeini, amongst others), to the wheedling flute
melody that winds its way over the paranoid lyrics. It's a pretty song but
one with darker undercurrents that deserved to be more than the novelty hit
that it was.

"Norman Bates" was *almost* a hit and relates the events in the Hitchcock
film "Psycho". It's rather amusing, from the impersonation of Norman
himself, through the refrain of "My name is Norman Bates, I'm just a normal
guy" to the melodramatic voice-over at the end.

The piece de resistance of the album, though, is "The Doll's House" which
takes the hints of weirdness that surfaced in "Einstein A Go-Go" and builds
on them to create a wonderful track that sounds like, if not madness
distilled, then at least not-entirely-harmless eccentricity distilled. With
its strange vocals effects, repetitive percussion and screeching brass the
overall effect is that of a fever dream set to music.

After the past three tracks, the end of the album is something of an
anticlimax, as Burgess does his best lounge-lizard impression and croons
along to tinkly futuristic synth versions of the beguine, a mambo and a
tango. It's amusing the first couple of times you hear it, but the novelty
wears off pretty quickly.

Which may well have been the reason Landscape never fulfilled their
potential. They were trying to be *too* clever, and the better material
suffocated under the weight of novelty weirdness.

So who will this appeal to? "From The Tea-Rooms..." should be of interest
to fans of the rather lighter, more conventional synth-pop bands around in
the very late 70s/early 80s, such as The Buggles, New Musik and After The
Fire. If you prefer the more "serious" bands from this period, such as
Ultravox and The Human League, the appeal will be less obvious. As for
"Landscape" I have to admit to being stumped as to where the appeal lies
here. Look on it as bonus tracks to "From The Tea-Rooms..." though and it
becomes much more palatable.

From The Tea-Rooms - Erland Rating: +2
Landscape	   - Erland Rating: +0
Overall		   - Erland Rating: +1

Crawford Rating: Purple/Mango/Dachshund

--
		      Al Crawford - awrc@dcs.ed.ac.uk
			   "Click click drone."
Newsgroups: rec.music.reviews,rec.music.misc