TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS

The most controversial album of the band, this double album has been remixed by Steven Wilson in 5.1 and stereo. So, it's the best sounding source we can have of the album. This album has never been acclaim by all the critics and Rick Wakeman didn't like the direction the band was going. Why? It was inspired by Jon Anderson reading of an esoteric book of a Yogi and he wanted to make 4 epics of this. The music is intriguing, sometimes disconcerting with parts of songs that seems to not flowing naturally together. But at the same times, we can hear some brilliant passages. The band especially Steve Howe and Jon Anderson were proud of this album and felt that it was a necessary step into the band's career. While I am not the best judge to hear a big change in quality sound for the stereo mixes of Wilson, the 5.1 mixes are where we can hear a wide difference because of the nice separation of the instruments in each speaker. This is the main reason to buy this. Also, another different live version of Ritual can also be heard because it seems that this was taken from Steve Howe's sound mix, the guitar is more upfront than the original studio version.