This Is the Ice Age by Martha and the Muffins

This Is the Ice Age, the third Martha and the Muffins album, came out in 1981 and marked Daniel Lanois's first job producing a rock record, long before he went on to work with U2 and Bob Dylan. It was a family affair: his sister Jocelyne played bass and sang backing vocals, alongside Martha Johnson on keyboards and lead vocals and Mark Gane on guitar. Working title? The Big Merge.

Coming after Trance and Dance, the record leans toward something cool and textured, as wintry as its title suggests. "Women Around the World at Work" went out as a single in Britain and Canada, and "Swimming", with Gane singing lead, was a Canadian single too. Gane also shot the cover from his Bloor Street apartment in Toronto: First Canadian Place looming over a crumbling building. The LP then went missing for more than 20 years, until EMI Canada put it on CD in 2005 with two extra tracks. Danseparc followed.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.