THE ELECTRONIC CORNER

SJ: You were heavily involved in the emerging Blitz scene. To start with, you coined the term ‘New Romantic’ to describe anything related to the club run by Rusty Egan and Steve Strange, which later came to define an entire musical and cultural movement. Additionally, you produced the first two albums of Spandau Ballet, the undisputed stars of the Blitz scene. How did the atmosphere and the music played there influence your work with Spandau Ballet, and vice versa? I assume there was a sort of mutual exchange, wasn’t there?

RB: That’s exactly right. Landscape was already on track to become a fully electronic group, I had known Rusty Egan for about eight years at that point and he was familiar with Landscape, he was playing music from our first RCA album at the Blitz, and it was all very natural that we fitted into to that sound. We didn’t really adapt to the club, we were already moving in a similar or parallel direction.
Spandau Ballet was in its formative stages, and they were a part of and assimilated what was going on in that community and they became the preeminent and definitive New Romantic band before the term existed and before it became a national and international phenomenon.
Other important bands that became a part of the movement such as Ultravox were there. So was Boy George, Marilyn, many designers and other creatives – it was a melting pot, a cauldron of creativity, a bright spot at a dark time in London and in the UK’s social, political, and economic history.
Punk had emphasized the darkness whereas the Blitz focused on the positive, uplifting, creative elements that came to define the UK in the 1980s. In the USA, it came to be known as the second British invasion.

RB: That’s very kind of you to say that. My vision was for a fully electronic drum set that would replace the acoustic set in every way.
I mocked up how it would work using prior technologies by analysing how acoustic drums work sonically. I then set up the various component elements of each drum sound on different synth modules and combined them to make the final sounds of each drum. In the end, we fell short of my most ambitious vision, for reasons of the economics involved in making it into a commercial product.
To this day, as good as electronic drums are, they still don’t fully meet the criteria that I had in my mind back in the mid to late 1970s. However I am happy that we crossed the line from, what I called ‘special effects electronic percussion sounds’ (Syndrums, Synare, Impakt etc.) into the area of ‘functional electronic drums’ (electronic drums that could replace acoustic drums on recordings and on stage).
I was never trying to create an electronic set that sounded exactly like acoustic drums – what I wanted was a set that would perform the functions of an acoustic set with a much wider variety of sounds. Having been a studio drummer since 1971, I was particularly interested in the sound of recorded drums, which is significantly different from the sound of an acoustic set in a room.
The main technical challenge was that my prototype, which I still have, was fragile. It was a bunch of components and wires screwed onto a board and the connectors were all hanging loose. You had to have a screwdriver to adjust the sounds and a soldering iron to repair anything that broke while you were using it. It was an immense amount of fun, though, and so exciting to have it working and to be able to make the first recordings that featured fully electronic drums in place of acoustic drums.
I went with analog sounds on the eve of the brand-new digital sampling technology because digital samples were not yet flexible or versatile enough to achieve the goals that I had in mind.

Chris Heaton

SJ: In the late 1960s, you heard the sound of synthesizers for the first time, produced by Buchla’s modules. What was your reaction back then? Did that experience inspire you to one day explore and perhaps even specialize in the use of electronic instruments, or was it more of a ‘nice to know’ experience?

CH: It’s interesting that Donald Buchla never really liked the word synthesizer and preferred to call his instrument ‘The Electric Music Box’.
Buchla and his associates wanted a new musical instrument that brought live performance to controlling sound and musical ideas – whereas Robert Moog at around the same time understood that the way to get his instrument going was to use a ‘piano’ keyboard. The Modular Moog could be played by pianists or organists in a recording studio (principally then New York).
Buchla’s instrument was developed in the more academic environment of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, with the control of sounds as its main idea. I loved the idea of the Buchla where you could deal with sound either in minute detail or allow space for the unexpected – use multi sequencers or just manually control when something might or might not happen.

SJ: You were one of the first musicians to use ring modulators, and you developed a creative approach to amplification, foot pedals, and delays to modify the sound of your Fender Rhodes piano. This seems to align perfectly with free improvisation, a style you’ve always been passionate about. I know it’s very hard to describe a sound in words, but can you share your favourite ‘trick’ when using these tools in a performance involving free improvisation?

CH: I was very lucky in Landscape. The environment of live performing meant I was very free to incorporate different sounds (especially in solos) quite at will from one performance to another – on the same tune I might play a echoey electric piano solo one time, or just stamp on a fuzzbox and treble booster another.
Also, because it was sometimes difficult to know where the exact pitch of the sine wave was in the ring modulator it was lovely to just switch it on and see what would happen. In a sense anything could happen.
A great example on the boxed set is behind John’s wonderful electric soprano sax solo on ‘Stranger’ – I just switched on the pedals and ring modulator and off we went.

SJ: What was the main technical challenge that Landscape had to face in a live performance?

CH: Personally, to switch on the CS80 early to make sure it settled into tune, and to make sure all the pedals had fresh batteries.

Andy Pask

SJ: The list of artists whose albums you’ve played bass on is enormous, and you’ve also had (and continue to have) a very intense live performance schedule. Have you ever felt that this ‘addiction to music’ has taken you away from other things you would have liked to learn or do? Or, over the decades, have you always lived exactly the kind of life you wanted?

AP: I consider myself extremely fortunate to have spent my whole working life in music. Occasionally, I have found myself bored or frustrated by what I was working on – either musically or the working conditions – but I have enjoyed and got something out of almost everything I have done.
Maybe I am easily pleased, I don’t know, but I have never had a burning artistic ambition or the need to pursue singular artistic goals, which meant that the variety of work and music I have done over my career has been challenging but never repetitive or boring.
For example, the last twelve months have included jazz and a Julia Wolfe piece with the Philharmonia, Christmas music and a Michael Tippett opera with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, film sessions and Gospel music with the London Symphony Orchestra, ABBA and symphonic rock with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, broadcasts with the BBC Concert Orchestra, an operetta tour to Trieste, two tours with Hans Zimmer Live and a bunch of film sessions. I played nine West End shows over thirteen years at one point.
This could have been dull, but I was lucky that the shows involved great music like The Bodyguard and Hair, and with the right frame of mind and a lot of outside work to mix it up, even six or so shows a week didn’t grate.
When you are playing music with the best people, the concentration on the groove is constant and hypnotic and I don’t get tired of it. Also, when not working on the music itself, you’d be hard pressed to find a more socially enjoyable profession.
There are other things I am interested in and would probably have enjoyed as much. I’d have loved to be an engineer, maybe in electronics or nano-tech. I remember hearing a BBC Reith Lecture by an engineer who said that you never hear much from engineers because what they do is so fascinating; they just get on with it quietly with no fuss.
But I am happy with the way things have turned out. Hans Zimmer’s gig is absolutely astonishing, with a collection of lovely, incredibly talented people and I get to tour the world and visit interesting cities and countries.

SJ: What’s the main difference, if any, between working on an artist album and working on a soundtrack?

AP: As a generalisation, soundtrack music is written in support of film visuals and can sometimes feel incomplete as a piece when it is being recorded, whereas a song for an artist is always a complete piece and this can be more satisfying.
I play on both types of sessions as a member of double bass sections and rhythm sections. In an orchestral bass section you have to play exactly what’s written. As a rhythm player there are more opportunities to be creative, which can be rewarding and fun.

SJ: What’s the funniest episode you recall about working with Landscape?

AP: In the early days we found ourselves in some odd situations when we didn’t have any money. We once slept on the floor of a health food store with mice scratching around, we also rented a couple of caravans in a caravan park one night.

Peter Thoms

SJ: You recorded library music for prestigious companies such as De Wolfe Music and Universal Music. Would you consider it a piece of cake, or are there challenges in a task like that that the general public may not be aware of?

PT: One of the insights I gained from being a member of Landscape was the benefit of collaboration.
A certain amount of the library music I’ve written has been with writing partners. After working with sax player Andy Hamilton in the Boomtown Rats (including Live Aid) we co-wrote many tracks together taking advantage of our collective skills.
After working with Haircut 100 I co-wrote more tracks with their sax player Phil Smith.
I worked on the Channel 4 black gospel show People Get Ready and have continued to work with guitarist / vocalist Noel Robinson on both library and commercially available albums. My Latin music output has been helped by my Venezuelan Spiteri colleague Micho Correa.
It’s never an easy task to compose and produce music but it can be fun. The challenges are more to do with finding a style or genre that hasn’t already been covered.

SJ: A trombone player in a totally electronic band inevitably stimulates my curiosity. Can you please shed light on how the sound of your instrument was processed to blend with Landscape’s sonority?

PT: As trombone more regularly finds its natural home in a brass section, it was a challenge to find how it might sit in a rock rhythm section with only one other instrument to create a workable ensemble.
Fortunately as John was using the lyricon (and before that soprano sax and flute with pedals), and I was going through a Roland Pitch-to-Voltage synthesizer, we we able to create a unique sound, further helped by clever voicings that John and I worked out. The use of octave dividers, fuzz and wah-wah pedals added to the colours I was able to provide.

SJ: In the description of Landscape’s Instagram profile, you can read ‘European men’, obviously referencing the first track of the album From the Tea-Rooms of Mars … What does it mean to the band, and to you in particular, to be a European man, especially considering that Great Britain decided a few years ago to be a bit less European, and that you are originally from Australia?

PT: I think being a ‘European Man’ is also a state of mind. For musicians, the boundaries and political opt-outs you describe don’t separate us from the culture and music communities in Europe and elsewhere. They remain and we embrace them.

John Walters

SJ: Together with Richard Burgess, you programmed the Fairlight for Kate Bush’s Never for Ever album. Were the two of you involved in selecting the right sounds, or was it more of a ‘I need a breaking glass sound’ kind of situation? And what was the main challenge in programming the Fairlight?

JW: When we went into Abbey Road to work on Never for Ever, we already had a library of sounds that we had created or modified and were used to working with, but Kate was interested in discovering what the Fairlight CMI could do by sampling from scratch.
Some of the things she thought the Fairlight was capable of doing – long atmospheric samples – were beyond the instrument’s capabilities in 1980, so we suggested spinning in the sounds from tape, which Kate’s brilliant co-producer Jon Kelly was well used to doing.
For ‘Babooshka’, the smashed wine glasses were part of the song’s story – the wife throwing glasses at the untrustworthy husband – so we smashed a lot of glasses, created samples and devised a way to use them within Kate’s arrangement.
For ‘Army Dreamers’, we sampled the sound of a rifle that John Bush (Kate’s photographer brother) brought in, and Richard played it rhythmically from the keyboard.
On ‘Delius’ we tried out lots of samples – the most memorable one is the ‘usss’ vocal sound at the end of the name.

SJ: You have written extensively about music, including as an album reviewer. I must admit, I have an issue with some music critics, (especially those who have never made music themselves), who tend to write as if their opinions were absolute truths rather than subjective perspectives.
As a musician yourself, do you think it’s possible to rely on objective elements when reviewing other musicians’ work, or do you believe that anything you or anyone else writes as a music critic should be regarded solely as personal opinion?

JW: I co-founded the music journal Unknown Public in the 1990s as a way to deal with the challenge of writing about creative music: sometime it’s easier to point to things than describe them.
However we live in a visual, literate world, and sooner or later you have to describe things in words. Many elements in music can be described objectively, but readers ultimately want to know what a critic thinks and feels about the work – and why.
There will be people who read my articles and reviews who don’t share my opinions, but I trust my writing will give them some idea of what the music sounds like and intrigue them by introducing them to new music, or making them think differently about music they know.
When you read a critic regularly, you can calibrate your opinions against theirs – I enjoyed writing regular columns for the Independent and the Guardian for that reason.

SJ: When Landscape took its first steps, all five of you were already highly qualified musicians, and most of you were multi-instrumentalists with experience across a wide range of music genres. During the creative process (composition, arrangement and sound selection) how did you manage to prevent this immense source of potential creativity from becoming more of a curse than a blessing? How did the creative process within the band work?

JW: I was never very well qualified! Landscape had an interesting mix of innocence and experience. Electronics encouraged us to switch roles.
Though Richard was an ace drummer, ‘Einstein a Go-Go’, has an ultra-simple drum pattern that I programmed. (Richard made it sound good.) We had to teach ourselves to program computers from scratch – there were no courses or YouTube tutorials back then. The vocals are often quite raw.
When I founded a band to play my compositions, with the confidence of youth, I sought out people who were much better than me. Having creative partners / colleagues is never a problem. Landscape often went against the flow, and we made up for it by performing as powerfully and intensely as possible.
As Landscape evolved into a co-operative band, the other four brought along their own tunes and we started to co-write: me and Richard on ‘U2XME1X2MUCH’ and ‘Einstein a Go-Go’; Peter and me on ‘Workers’ Playtime’ and ‘Nearly Normal’; Chris and Richard on ‘New Religion’ and ‘The Doll’s House’.
Most of Manhattan Boogie-Woogie was written collectively. And tunes written by one person (‘Norman Bates’, ‘Tribute’) always involved huge creative contributions from the others.
In the studio, we threw in lots of ideas – the process of editing down to a finished product came later. We still work that way. There was a huge repertoire, so there is still more to unearth from the archives.

SJ: My final question is addressed to all band members.
Landscape A Go-Go: The Story of Landscape 1977-83, released in 2023, is available as a 5-CD box set and in digital form on all major digital platforms. When you think about this collection of 84 tracks and almost six hours of music, what is the first thought that crosses your mind?

Richard Burgess: I think about how much fun it was working with the band again and how easy it was to be creative. It seemed to me that we fell right back into the mode that we were in when we were developing the band back in the 1970s.
Also, it was unbelievably exciting to hear the music for the first time in more than 40 years and in high-resolution digital from the restored tape recordings.

Chris Heaton: What a wonderful band we were live, and how much I loved playing in it.
Also how interesting that all that we collectively learned came together in the studio experience of the Tea-Rooms album.

Andy Pask: After immersing myself in the music again, I realised I had learned a lot about Landscape that I didn’t fully understand back in the day.
These 84 tracks turned out to be an immense project – very rewarding to complete and a really comprehensive view of all the different stages the band went through.

Peter Thoms: My reaction to the release of Landscape A Go-Go was that I was pleased and proud that we had managed to collate our best work from that period in one package and that it still sounded fresh and vital.
The positive reaction we’ve received justifies the work we put into it.

John Walters: Working again with Richard, Chris, Andy and Peter – and with graphic designer John Warwicker – was a terrific experience. And it feels good knowing that so much Landscape music is available worldwide.

We are really grateful to Landscape for this in-depth interview! If you liked it or if you have any question, please leave a comment in the section below the promo.

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