Aerial Landscape - Proposition 13/ Are You Sleeping

 

 

 

Harbingers of Doom and Gloom with Chirpy Melodies

 

Label: RCA Victor

Year of Release: 1968

 

Sweeping generalisations are often a bad idea - few things are likely to aggravate people more on social media, for one thing - but nonetheless, if you wanted to highlight the key differences between UK and US hippy pop in the late sixties, chief among them would probably be the mood and tone. If US performers were often intense young men and ladies who were either desperate to prove they were poets like Bob Dylan or wanted us to know that the way we lived our lives was simply Not Good, a lot of UK acts tended to be experimental, childlike and giddy, and more obsessed with improvements in recording studio technology than the Vietnam War. Yes, it's a generalisation and there are exceptions on either side of the pond, but still...

Aerial Landscape produced this rather strange single in 1968 which somehow crossed the streams. The lyrics appear to be pointing towards a coming storm of no specified kind ("The sands of time are shifting/ and the lights are going out!" they begin, before adding "As the Grim Reaper is sleeping/ in comes Satan with his rake") while the melody behind them is merry and triumphant. It's not a complete mismatch, of course. Aerial Landscape, bless their souls, appear to be optimistic enough to believe that their underground movement will mean that the greedheads of the world will shortly been shown the door. We're still waiting, chaps.

The song is blessed with some beautiful arrangements which, while chirpy, keep things moving along and enhance a fairly simple (if occasionally lyrically oblique) protest song into something approaching pop. It's the kind of song whose style wouldn't last beyond the sixties and while it feels timelocked in a particular era as a result, it's still a strong listen.

The identity of Aerial Landscape is less easy to solve. They had two singles out in 1968 - this one, released in January, and the April follow up "Both Sides Now", which was a cover of Joni Mitchell's song. Brief but favourable reviews followed in the US music press for both, but little other coverage, and that really seems to be that. I can't find any trace of who their members were, where they came from or what they did next, though Discogs seems to suggest that Dave Qualey was their guitarist, who was previously the member of the equally obscure John Rosasco Quartet.

Once again, if anyone has any further information, please let me know.

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