I was sure that I remembered this as a double album (I have mentioned before that my university housemates were big prog-rock afficionados and I absorbed a lot through osmosis). It’s not a double album, but it does have a gatefold sleeve to showcase the Roger Dean artwork, and only has three tracks. The first track, Close To The Edge, is 18 minutes long, but really didn’t feel like it. It’s comprised of three “movements”, the first being a kind of rapid atonal mélange of sound not dissimilar to the rapid pixellation of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. This then turns into the most conventional song part, the introduction of the main lyrics and Anderson’s singing.
Here was a bit I remember, the lyric “Close to the edge, down by the river”. Recalling that Roundabout on The Yes Album also spoke of “In and around the lake”, I wonder if there’s an ongoing theme with Yes of larking around near bodies of water, contrary to the advice of scary Public Information Films (The Spirit Of Dark And Lonely Water (Public Information Film 1973)
Something to watch out for.
Something to watch out for.
The third movement is I Get Up, I Get Down, where Anderson’s voice (of which I’m not a big fan) really comes into its own, weaving a beautiful complex round-like structure of simple overlapping refrains. Suddenly, Rick Wakeman burst into the room with a church organ like the villain from a Gothic melodrama, and once he’s shut Anderson up proceeds to perform some super-fast Hammond organ work.
And then comes the final movement, Seasons of Man where all of the disparate oddness of the previous three sections are brought together into a glorious whole. Like an M Night Shyamalan film, suddenly the reasons for all of the preceding bits make sense.
Track Two is And You And I, which is relatively straightforward, a kind of ethereal love song with some nice electronica, and probably the most accessible tune on the album. It’s the one I remember the best. Siberian Khatru is also relatively free from twiddling about, being more rocky and upbeat, with a heavy refrain and a final guitar solo from Howe that is pretty good. On these two tracks, Yes are closer to the more "art rock" of Pink Floyd and the like than the prog rock of King Crimson.
Of the Yes albums so far, this is the most coherent, although if you read about their experience recording it, it’s surprising that it is. But it doesn’t have the sense of their previous albums that “Now John has a go, then Rick has a go, then Steve has a go, then Bill does something, then we do a bit from Chris”. Here the contributions from each member mesh more cleanly. I’m still not a massive fan (and returning after 35 years hasn’t changed me that much), but this is my favourite so far.
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