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I am also hosting Rural Electric (Mostly) Country Music from 7-9 pm right after the Island Messenger; this week I'll be featuring the top 25 contemporary country artists.
Close to the Edge is the fifth studio album by English progressive rock band Yes, released on 8 September 1972 by Atlantic Records. It is their last album of the 1970s to feature original drummer Bill Bruford, who found the album particularly laborious to make and felt unable to contribute better ideas, which influenced his decision to join King Crimson once recording had finished.
After scoring a critical and commercial hit with their previous album Fragile (1971) and touring the album, Yes regrouped with producer and engineer Eddy Offord to record a follow-up. The album's centrepiece is the 18-minute title track, with lyrics inspired by the Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha. Side two contains two non-conceptual tracks, the folk-inspired "And You and I" and the comparatively straightforward rocker "Siberian Khatru". The album's cover, designed by Roger Dean, marked the debut of the band's "bubble" logo.
Close to the Edge became the band's greatest commercial success at the time of release, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 3 in the US, where it sold over one million copies. The album's 1972-1973 tour comprised over 90 dates worldwide and marked the debut of drummer Alan White, who joined the band three days before it started. It was reissued in 1994, 2003, and 2013; the latter release includes previously unreleased tracks and new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes. Close to the Edge has since received widespread critical acclaim; in 2020, it was ranked 445th on Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[5]
Steven Wilson Remix: Released on the Panegyric label, Steven Wilson used the original multi-track recordings to produce a “2013 stereo mix”, a 5.1 surround sound mix, and an “original stereo mix” from a flat transfer of the LP, in both a CD and DVD-Audio and CD and Blu-ray Disc package. Bonus tracks include single edits, an early rough mix of “Close to the Edge”, and instrumental versions of the album’s three tracks.
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| We'll have time to play Side 4 of Tales from Topographic Oceans: "Ritual" | ||||
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Tales from Topographic Oceans is the sixth studio album by English progressive rock band Yes, released on 7 December 1973 by Atlantic Records. It is their first studio album to feature drummer Alan White, who had replaced Bill Bruford the previous year. Frontman Jon Anderson devised its concept during the Close to the Edge Tour, when he read a footnote in Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda that describes four bodies of Hindu texts about a specific field of knowledge, collectively named shastras–śruti, smriti, puranas, and tantras. After pitching the idea to guitarist Steve Howe, the pair spent the rest of the tour developing an outline of the album's musical themes and lyrics.
"Ritual (Nous sommes du soleil)" relates to the tantras, literally meaning rites or rituals.[3]
Anderson described its bass and drum solos as a presentation of the
fight and struggle that life presents between "sources of evil and pure
love".[23] Howe is particularly fond of his guitar solo at the beginning, which to him was "spine-chilling" and "heavenly to play",[45] and uses a Gibson Les Paul Junior.[37] He wrote the chords and some lyrics to the "Life is like a fight" section.[37]
His outro guitar solo was more improvised and jazz-oriented at first,
but the rest of the group felt dissatisfied with the arrangement.
Anderson suggested that Howe pick several themes from the album and
combine them, which Howe did with "a more concise, more thematic
approach".[46]
During one of Wakeman's absences from the studio, White came up with
the piano sequence for the closing "Nous sommes du soleil" section.[8]
The second half contains a percussion jam that features the main melody
played on the drums. White, who played a standard kit, taught the
sequence to the other members, with Anderson on a cocktail kit and
Squire on timpani.[47] Howe, despite participating on the drum solo on stage early on, opted out as it affected his guitar playing afterward.
Tales From Topographic Oceans was the fifth in a series of expanded Yes classics, remixed in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound from the original multi-track tapes, and approved by Yes.
It features the new mix of the original album, an unedited / extended version of Dance of the Dawn (side one), and 5 newly created “single” edits focussing on the song sections of the extended pieces. There’s also a complete alternate version of the album using live tracks and studio run throughs. Of these “High The Memory” (a studio run-through of side 2), and “Ritual” (live in Zurich, April 1974) are previously unreleased.
More bonus features include the extended Dance of the Dawn in stereo & 5.1 surround sound, the 5 edits, instrumental mixes, the alternate versions, and more, all in high resolution.
Multitrack tapes are unavailable for the other key albums in the Yes catalogue, so unless that situation changes, this will be the final release in the series.
True is the sixteenth studio album by former Yes lead singer Jon Anderson. It is a collaboration with the Band Geeks that was released on 23 August 2024 by Frontiers Records.[1]
Background
In March 2024, Anderson announced that a new tour, titled "Yes: Epics, Classics and More" would begin with the Band Geeks as a backing band, who had previously been on tour with Anderson. Alongside this announcement, Band Geeks member and co-producer Richie Castellano also announced that they were working on a new studio album.[2] The label Frontier Records described it as "a collection of songs that harkens back to Yes’s classic 70’s sounds as well as to their latter-day success with the album 90125."[3] Two singles and music videos were released in promotion of the album, "Shine On" on 13 June 2024[4][5][6] and "True Messenger" on 29 July 2024.[7]
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