792 Yes - Tales from Topographical Ocean (1973)

Studio Album (Double) - Progressive Rock

About the Act:

Yes followed the “How to be Prog” leaflet pretty closely - formed in 1968, had a lot of success in the early 70s, lost their way a bit at the end of the 70s, broke up in 1981, but reformed in 1983 with a more commercial sound, and have been active in some form ever since. They have had a good number of personnel changes, with particular emphasis on keyboard players. Their most famous member probably was Rick Wakeman, although the singer Jon Anderson (who has come and gone several times) has a very recognisable voice.

The distinctive Yes sound has an emphasis on the high frequency range, strong, strident bass, complex arrangements with high, strong vocals, and a rather positive attitude to life, in a vaguely New-Agey kind of way. Oh, and a lot of their classic albums had covers drawn by fantasy artist Roger Dean.

About the Album:

This was their sixth album. My favourite thing I read about this album was that two of the band wanted to record in the countryside, two others wanted to do it in London, and the fifth didn't care. Jon Anderson wanted to record it in a forest at night, having buried generators underground so they wouldn't be audible. The others told him to "get a life". In the end they recorded it in London, but decorated the studio like a farmyard, it's not clear whether this was to make fun of Jon, or not.

My History with this Album:

I reviewed this album for my series of Prog reviews. Before then I had not really listened to it.

Review:

So this review is recycled from my earlier series. 

As is my habit, I listened to this in the car. It sounded like Yes to me - lots of complexity and cleverness and a certain sound that is undeniably Yes - mostly a combination of lots of high-frequency stuff, Jon Anderson's voice, and Chris Squire's distinctive bass which is lacking at the bottom end but quite crunchy and toppy. Add to this lots of synth, complex rhythms and distinctive harmonies and yes, it sounds like Yes. And in the car it kind of washed over me and passed me by.

Like I sometimes do, I decided I needed another run through. I was doing other stuff, but I did hear quite a bit of it. It's also playing through again now as I write. It's.... growing on me.

Musically it's, well, as described. Structurally, there are four LP-side -length tracks, each of which is a multi-part shifting thing, in proper Prog style. It's ambitious and broad in scope. It's very Proggy in style, lots of shifts, odd rhythms, some curious harmonies, lots of playing with sounds. Alongside the standard Yes rock sounds there are some interesting variations, things like odd percussion, almost sound-effecty parts, and a nice classical guitar passage. There is a lot of Mellotron, well-used.

Conceptually it's based on the four bodies of Hindu texts (called the "Shastras" - a concept created by Jon Anderson - although apparently he had to have somebody explain them to him. This leads to typically Yes-like vague New-Age mysticism and general "isn't the universe wonderful" hippie-ness. Digging into it, with a third listen, it's making musical sense, and I am enjoying the musical ambition. It has come out much higher in my estimation than from my first listen. However, I do have a couple of niggles. The first is that their neglect of the bottom end of the frequency range (typically Yes) is a wasted chance to make this much richer. The second is that in the complexity, at times it is clumsy - too much going on, and just the occasional fluffed note. 

Back to the present. I'm listening to this fresh, in isolation from a great steaming pile of other prog, and it's sounding pretty good to me. So much so that I am going to bump its score a little.

7.8/10

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/4kn7nw5uHF6T9biAX5qcrW

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rwNe2QXwrU

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_Topographic_Oceans