tales from toPOLLgraphic oceans (topographic for searchers!)

relayer! we rejoice in all the meanings

Love it all but Ritual is the most exciting one for me.

Where are all my Upanishad-lovin' YES freaks?

We need a sub-poll: who prefers the version of the first track with the noodly ambient synth intro, like me, and who prefers it to kick off with the vocals starting suddenly out of nowhere?

This is one of my favorite albums ever and it could be any of these at different times

I can’t believe this is widely considered the moment that they took things too far…there are multiple moments on Relayer that are so maniacally busy that it’s like the sound of an anxiety attack or something.

noodly ambient synth intro forever!!!!

I've never fully got into this album (which I bought nearly 50 years ago!), but we have tickets for a re-scheduled Yes gig that was originally going to be Relayer in full, but which will now be Tales in full, so it's time to put some more work in. (My partner loves all of it unreservedly, though.)

This album is frustrating and rewarding in equal doses
I’ll be sitting through some double-time minus one beat syncopated carousel melodic bullshit and then the bottom drops out and it gets super moody

wait is the noodly synth intro only on the CD or something?!?

wait is the noodly synth intro only on the CD or something?!?

Apparently, yes! I didn't realize this because the first time I heard the album was when Rhino reissued it, but according to Wikipedia, "The 2003 CD reissue of the album includes a previously unreleased two-minute introduction." When Steven Wilson remixed the album, the intro was removed again. (I don't like Wilson's remix, ftr. Some of his other remixes are really good, but this one isn't.)

aw man. gonna have to look for a rip of that.

Much as I'd like to love this album it still always feels structureless, as if they wrote some cool stuff but couldn't figure out how to stitch it together. Maybe it works better without demanding a temporal element? i.e. if it sounds good in that moment then enjoy where you are and don't worry about anything before or after. Like being "Chased amid fusions of wonder / In moments hardly seen forgotten / Coloured in pastures of chance" in fact.

side 2 (song 2? movement 2?) is the only one that sounds to me like it has the structure to hang with the other major classics from their prime (yes album - 90125). it starts out a plaintive meditative dirge and builds to the "glorious challenge" acoustic bit, and then just starts to rip from there on out. relayer! the other three sides (songs? movements?) have never really hit me like "close to the edge" / "gates of delirium" / "heart of the sunrise" in nearly that peak YES godhead sense

I had the opening 30 seconds of 'Ritual - Nous Sommes du Soliel' as my alarm-clock wakeup song for a few years, but had to abandon it, because my half-asleep mind would repeatedly think 'Nothing you plan to do today is going to justify the dramatic arc of this'

side 2 (song 2? movement 2?) is the only one that sounds to me like it has the structure to hang with the other major classics from their prime (yes album - 90125). it starts out a plaintive meditative dirge and builds to the "glorious challenge" acoustic bit, and then just starts to rip from there on out. relayer! the other three sides (songs? movements?) have never really hit me like "close to the edge" / "gates of delirium" / "heart of the sunrise" in nearly that peak YES godhead sense

To me sides 1 and 4 (in addition to 2) of Topographic are way more cohesive structurally and easily digestible and way less musical whiplash than Gates of Delirium. It’s just confusing to me that the latter is so widely loved but Topographic seems like an acquired taste…I feel like Topographic should mostly be a walk in the park for anyone that can wrap their mind around Delirium. Plus there are just so many stunning moments on Topographic throughout and so many pieces that no one but Yes could have ever conceived…also it's like peak chill Yes which is def one of their best moods.

Side 4 even brings back that main riff from the early section of side 1…now there’s some structure for you.

I always say that each side of this is weaker than the previous, though it never sinks below fairly good (and the actual emotional peak of this is the climax of side 2). The restored intro to side 1 isn't especially significant, though it provides a nice bookend to the dissolution of the music at the end of side 4; opening with the vocal is a bolder stroke. Has anyone else noticed that the four verses they sing at the beginning correspond to the four songs on the album?

Yes have received a lot of flak (some of it from fans like me) for the shambolic chaos of the album sessions, but they can't win - if every last element had been planned and executed flawlessly, and e.g. Jon Anderson hadn't attempted to reconstruct his bathroom in the studio, people would then criticize them for being bloodless technocrats instead of hapless hippies.

I've got a book of Steve Howe guitar pieces, and I've been trying to learn his solo from "The Ancient", hampered by the fact that my classical guitar technique is basically non-existent.

...and it changes time and key signature practically every other measure.

good luck!

my hang-up with the opening of side 1 is it goes hard quick to that loungey vegas "perpetual change" place that isn't my favorite YES mode. (i still love "perpetual change"! just not the loungey bits.) over the years a lot of my less-than-enthused first impressions of YES music faded away eventually when i 'got' whatever song ("to be over" has been the toughest nut to crack so far, but i love it now) but the whole "what happened to the song we once knew so well?" is still off-putting to me even after getting over "i see the coldness dim the night" a long time ago

I think Alan White gives those sorts of "jazzy" interludes a little more muscle (though less swing) than Bruford did. I wouldn't even have thought to make the comparison with "Perpetual Change" though I see what you mean.

Like Bruford takes the swinging bits as an excuse to show I Can Really Play Jazz.

no knock on alan white (imagine tales from topographic oceans is your first album drumming with a band . . . !), and for sure they righted the good ship right pretty amazingly on relayer, but it's still hard not to wonder (new adventures in hi-fi to reveal-style) what bill might have brought to this had he not bailed for crimson

My expectations are always low for White and I’m proven wrong every time

I think his playing is great on Relayer, last thing that record needs is more wild instrumental stuff. he holds it down nicely.

on another Yes thread someone posted a list of shows they played from 1970-1973 - like nearly 150 each year. between that and these insane studio albums it's no wonder Bruford claimed he was just physically unable to be in Yes anymore. but King Crimson was just as busy!

According to Bruford they were usually driving to the gigs and then back to London in the same night. He said it was like being in the fire department; Anderson would book a gig out of town the same day and they'd have to rush out the door to get there.

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RELAYER
we rejoice in all the meanings

"We've got a wee bit more to say about Relayers that we didn't get to on this album..."

stand
on hills
of long forgotten
yesterdays