Land, released in 1983 on Jive Records, was The Comsat Angels' fourth album. The album was reissued on CD in 2001 with five B-sides as bonus tracks for Jive's "Connoisseur Collection".
The song "Independence Day," originally from their debut album, Waiting for a Miracle, was rerecorded for Land. "Will You Stay Tonight" and "Independence Day" received a reasonable amount of airplay and charted in the UK at No. 81 and No. 71, respectively. "Island Heart" was also released as a single.
Land was the first of two albums for the Jive label and was viewed as a major departure from the Comsats' first three albums. Frontman Stephen Fellows looked back in a 2006 interview: "We made more commercial albums in the mid-'80s because the record company wanted us to do so. We were happy to find a new label after the commercially not-so-successful first albums." He regretted the result, but their options seemed limited because of the pop music world at the time. "Indie didn’t really exist, so we had no choice. But in retrospect we should have [stuck] to our early sound." Bass player Kevin Bacon put it this way: "The demos we did for Land were really good. It was a weird time for us – we felt deflated after being dropped after three albums by Polydor. Eighties pop values were rife; we didn’t naturally fit in, but were all into being popular (pop) and felt we could achieve it in a more damning way. We didn’t think Land was crap at the time, we just didn’t think it was us."
The Comsat Angels were an English post-punk band from Sheffield England, initially active from 1978 to 1995. Their music has been described as "abstract pop songs with spare instrumentation, many of which were bleak and filled with some form of heartache." They have been credited as being an influence to later post-punk revival bands such as Blacklist, Bell Hollow, Editors and Interpol. The Comsat Angels toured heavily in the UK and in western Europe, especially in the Netherlands. They also toured the United States twice. Their music has been extensively reissued and recompiled since 1995 by various record labels.
Early history
Named after the J. G. Ballard short story "The Comsat Angels", the foursome's core lineup (lasting 1978–1992) consisted of:
They debuted in 1979 with the "Red Planet" three-track single. This release attracted Polydor A&R man Frank Neilson and the band signed a three-album recording contract. These three LPs – Waiting for a Miracle (1980), which included the single "Independence Day", probably their best known song, Sleep No More (1981) and Fiction (1982) – are regarded by some as their best, but only sold modestly.
"@" is a studio album by John Zorn and Thurston Moore. It is the first collaborative album by the duo and was recorded in New York City in February, 2013 and released by Tzadik Records in September 2013. The album consists of improvised music by Zorn and Moore that was recorded in the studio in real time with no edits or overdubs.
Reception
Allmusic said "@ finds two of New York City's longest-running fringe dwellers churning out sheets of collaborative sounds that conjoin their respective and distinct states of constant freak-out... These seven improvisations sound inspired without feeling at all heavy-handed or urgent. More so, @ succeeds with the type of conversational playing that could only be achieved by two masters so deep into their craft that it probably feels a lot like breathing to them by now".
Track listing
All compositions by John Zorn and Thurston Moore
?! is the third studio album by Italian rapper Caparezza, and his first release not to use the former stage name MikiMix.
Reception
Reviewing the album for Allmusic, Jason Birchmeier wrote, "The Italian rapper drops his rhymes with just as much fluency and dexterity as his American peers throughout the album. [...] Caparezza's mastery of the Italian dialect [makes] this album so stunning."
Track listing
References
"Album" is the seventh episode of the first season of the 1974 American television series Land of the Lost. Written by Dick Morgan and directed by Bob Lally, it first aired in the United States on October 19, 1974 on NBC. The episode guest stars Erica Hagen.
Plot
Will awakens in the early morning to a high-pitched whirring sound which fills the jungle, but eventually it goes away. Rick has Holly build a trap to catch whatever has been breaking into their stores, and Will goes to weed the garden. While outside, he again hears the sound and follows it to the Lost City. Within, he enters a chamber with a very crude-looking attempt to simulate a matrix table but filled with colored stones instead of crystals. On the ground is a pulsating blue crystal that attracts his attention. Picking it up, he sees his mother (Erica Hagen) materialize in a cloud of mist. Afterwards, he returns to High Bluff but doesn't speak of his encounter.
The next day Holly's trap has not worked, and Will again hears the sound. Holly hears it briefly as well, but dismisses it. Will returns to the Lost City and again witnesses his mother while holding a blue stone. His mother calls for him, but he is interrupted by Holly, who sees nothing until she touches the blue crystal as well. Holding it together, they are both beckoned by their mother to "come home," but then she quickly adds, "Too late. Come tomorrow. Don't tell." Will explains to Holly that he wants to tell Rick about his discovery but for some reason he is unable to. Holly replies that she will tell their father if he does not and Will sincerely hopes that she can. Will theorizes that they were looking through a time doorway that is open to a period when she was still alive. When Holly asks why her image is not very clear, her brother suggests that it might be because they do not remember her very well.
"Land" was a one-off charity single released in August 1993, credited to (and in the following order) Midnight Oil, Daniel Lanois, Hothouse Flowers, Crash Vegas, and The Tragically Hip. All five artists were part of that year's Another Roadside Attraction tour.
The CD release credits the authorship of the track to Jim Moginie, Rob Hirst, Peter Garrett, Gord Downie, Daniel Lanois and The Tragically Hip. However, as officially registered with ASCAP and BMI, the composition of "Land" is credited to Downie, Garrett, Lanois and Liam Ó Maonlaí. It was recorded in Calgary, with Lanois producing.
The song protests the logging industry practice of clearcutting in the rainforests of British Columbia. Issued as a single in Australia, "Land" peaked at #63.
References
COMSAT (Communications Satellite Corporation) is a global telecommunications company, based in the United States, and with branches in Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela and several other countries in the Americas. Although it operates many kinds of data communication technologies, it is best known for its satellite communication services.
History
The COMSAT Corporation was created by the Communications Satellite Act of 1962 and incorporated as a publicly traded company in 1963. The primary goal of COMSAT was to serve as a public, federally funded corporation intended to develop a commercial and international satellite communication system press. Although the corporation was government regulated, it was equally owned by some major communications corporations and independent investors. COMSAT began operations with its headquarters in Washington, DC, in 1962, with a six-person founding board of directors appointed by President John F. Kennedy, including: Phil Graham who served as Chairman (until his resignation in January 1963); Leo D. Welch, Joseph V. Charyk, David M. Kennedy, George Killion, Leonard H. Marks, and Bruce Sundlun.