| Survellance | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by FM | ||||
| Released | 1979 | |||
| Recorded | Sounds Interchange, Toronto | |||
| Genre | Space rock | |||
| Length | 36:09 | |||
| Label | Passport, Arista | |||
| Producer | Keith Whiting | |||
| FM chronology | ||||
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Surveillance is the third album by FM, a progressive rock group from Toronto, Canada, released on Passport Records in summer 1979.
Surveillance was the group's first album to be widely issued upon release. Their first album (Black Noise, 1977) was initially a limited edition, and their second (Direct to Disc, 1978) was exclusively a limited edition. A non-limited reissue of Black Noise was the group's first release by Passport, even though it featured an earlier lineup with Nash the Slash instead of his replacement, Ben Mink, the change having taken place before the band signed to the label.
One week before the intended release date, Passport's Canadian parent company, GRT Records went out of business,[1] but Capitol Records bought the Canadian division of Passport from Visa Records (Passport's parent company in the USA), becoming its new parent company in Canada, and issued the album as the first of a new catalogue number sequence, PB-2001. It was also issued in the USA by Arista Records as Arista / Passport AB-4246.
Larry Fast of "Synergy" is credited with assistance; he would be the producer of FM's next album, City of Fear.
The album cover depicts a group photo displayed on a giant TV screen attached to an urban office tower, a futuristic concept at the time.
Contents |
The album continues the space rock lyrical theme introduced on Black Noise; the opening track's chorus is a chant of "Sci-fi rock, rocket roll".
The group's first cover version appears on this album: "Shapes of Things", originally recorded by The Yardbirds in 1966. FM (and Nash the Slash) would frequently pay tribute to their favourite songs, mostly from the 1960s, in the years to come. This song was also issued as a single (Arista 0477 in the USA).
An unusual song on Surveillance is a mostly instrumental track titled "Sofa Back" which the group performed live without its brief vocoderized chant of "Moe, Larry, cheese", a quote from the Three Stooges short film "Horses' Collars", expecting the audience would not understand it. Much to the group's surprise, audiences usually chanted the phrase during performance. This song also has a copyright date of 1966, and is presumably an old composition of Mink's which he brought to the group.
"Random Harvest' is featured on a 2006 benefit album titled After The Storm for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.[2]
All compositions by Cameron Hawkins, Martin Deller, Ben Mink, except as noted.