Yes – Tales From Topographic Oceans (1973)

Another trip to Harborough Market's second hand CD stall yielded quite an array of treasures, which will be looked at over the next week or so.

One of them was this 1973 double album (as a 2CD set), Yes's follow up to the classic Close To The Edge. Bill Bruford has escaped from the frying pan of Yes to the fire of King Crimson, to be replaced by Alan White, formerly of the Plastic Ono Band.

After the success of Close To The Edge, everyone in the band had a musical idea, everyone wanted their say, and the band had the commercial muscle to put out a double album. Did they have sufficient strong material to fill a double album?

After a couple of listens, it's clear what the answer is. This is an album of half completed ideas, some of them excellent, everybody's idea being found a space, and themes and performances going on too long. The album was presented at the time as a double LP, with four tracks, one on each side of vinyl, each lasting about twenty minutes, I find every instrumental has more repetitions than necessary. bridges drag on far longer than they need to (I wonder how much is because someone's got a new piece of kit they have to use) and it's just too padded. A massive pity, because each of the pieces could be cut down to an 8-10 minute epic and the album remembered as one of Yes's greats, rather than their folly which sent Rick Wakeman and his wizard's cape off on a solo career.

Part One The Revealing Science Of God / Dance Of The Dawn, for example, takes five minutes of ambience and chanting to get to the first main song, which is pretty good, while the second vocal theme feels like it's at a strong conclusion at 12 minutes. But it isn't at a conclusion.

The Remembering/High The Memory is probably the most coherent, least dragging piece of the four, while The Ancient Giants Under The Sun feels more meandering and directionless, until the final song piece, and some lovely classical guitar. Finally, Ritual/Nous Sommes Du Soleil starts well and feels strong (with a great song) up to the two thirds mark, when a cacophony of percussion explodes feeling incongruous. A reprise of the main vocal theme doesn't really save this.

Possibly an object lesson on what happens when too many musicians have too many ideas and too much time in the studio, and on outsider producing them as a critical friend.

Link to full album

3* - with restraint, this could have matched Close To The Edge. Instead it gave us something else to rebel against in 1977.