''Surveillance'' is the third album by FM, a

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

group from

Toronto, Ontario Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, released on

Passport Records Passport Records was a U.S.-based independent record label that existed between 1973 and 1988. It was notable for popularizing such artists as Larry Fast, FM, Richard Barone, and Wendy O. Williams. It was distributed by Jem Records in the United ...

in summer 1979, the first to be "widely issued." It has been re-released for the first time in CD format on Esoteric Records in March 2013.

Notes on songs

The album continues the

space rock Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drummin ...

lyrical theme introduced on ''Black Noise''; the opening track's chorus is a chant of "

Sci-fi Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...

rock, rocket roll". The group's first cover version appears on this album: "

Shapes of Things "Shapes of Things" is a song by the English rock group the Yardbirds. With its Eastern-sounding, feedback-laden guitar solo and anti-war/pro-environmental lyrics, several music writers have identified it as the first popular psychedelic rock ...

", originally recorded by

The Yardbirds The Yardbirds are an English rock band, formed in London in 1963. The band's core lineup featured vocalist and harmonica player Keith Relf, drummer Jim McCarty, rhythm guitarist and later bassist Chris Dreja and bassist/producer Paul Samwell ...

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

vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was ...

ized chant of "Moe, Larry, cheese", a quote from the

Three Stooges The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...

short film "

Horses' Collars ''Horses' Collars'' is a 1935 short subject directed by Clyde Bruckman and starring American slapstick comedy team The Three Stooges (Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Jerry Howard). It is the fifth entry in the series released by Columbia Picture ...

", 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 title
''After The Storm''
for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina."After the Storm - CD : Released, January 2006"
- ''nearfestrecords.com'' A remastered edition of ''Surveillance'' was released by Esoteric Records (ECLEC2383) on March 25, 2013.

Track listing

All compositions by Cameron Hawkins, Martin Deller,

Ben Mink Benjamin Mink (born January 22, 1951) is a Canadian songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer best known as a longtime collaborator of Canadian singer k.d. lang. He plays several string instruments, notably the guitar, violin, and the m ...

, except as noted. ;Side one #"Rocket Roll" – 3:29 #"Orion" – 1:33 #"Horizons" – 4:21 #"Random Harvest" – 4:36 #"

" ( Paul Samwell-Smith,

Keith Relf William Keith Relf (22 March 194312 May 1976) was an English musician, best known as the lead vocalist and harmonica player for rock band the Yardbirds. He then formed the band Renaissance with his sister Jane Relf, The Yardbirds ex-drummer J ...

Jim McCarty James Stanley McCarty (born 25 July 1943) is an English musician, best known as the drummer for the Yardbirds and Renaissance. Following Chris Dreja's departure from the Yardbirds in 2013, McCarty became the only member of the band to featur ...

) – 3:07 ;Side two #"Seventh Heaven" – 5:39 #"Father Time" – 4:23 #"Sofa Back" (Mink, B. Feldman) – 3:01 #"Destruction" – 6:00

Personnel

* Cameron Hawkins – lead vocals, synthesizers, bass guitar, piano *

– electric violin, electric mandolin, vocals * Martin Deller – drums, percussion

Technical credits

*Recorded at Sounds Interchange, Toronto, Ontario, Canada *Produced by Keith Whiting by arrangement with Jake Productions *Engineered by Mike Jones, assisted by Ed Stone *Synthesizers produced and programmed with the assistance of

Larry Fast Lawrence Roger Fast (born December 10, 1951) is an American synthesizer player and composer. He is best known for his 1975–1987 series of synthesizer music albums (''Synergy'') and for his contributions to a number of popular music acts, inclu ...

*Mastered at Sterling Sound, New York City, USA by George Marino *Art direction: Murray Brenman *Front cover photo: Paul Till *Back cover and inner sleeve photos: John Herzog

References

{{Authority control 1979 albums FM (Canadian band) albums Passport Records albums Arista Records albums