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TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANSYesSymphonic Prog3.92 | 2863 ratings |
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iluvmarillion
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I'm in the camp that loves this album, but I have to admit there are unresolved issues with Tales from Topographic
Oceans that justify the divided critical opinion of this album. Unlike a rock opera which runs for a similar length TFTO
has no start, middle or end. You could run the movements in a completely different order and it wouldn't make any
difference to the music. This makes the album difficult to perform live because it's likely to bore the audience, who
don't have a central point of focus of where the music is going. So, the band gets around this by performing only one
of the sides of music, usually, it's The Ritual, because the fourth side possesses the most melodic passage on the
album, "Nous Sommes Du Soleil". Unfortunately, performed live, this gives the impression that TFTO is a melodic rock
album like Close to the Edge and Fragile and people compare the melodies and rate it below the other two. Tales
really isn't like the other two. The music is organic, fluid and evolving. That makes it more like jazz rock. There is no definitive version of The Revealing Science of God. On the 2003 remastered version of the album they
reinserted the 2-minute introduction to the first side which was omitted due to limitations of space on the vinyl. Over
the years Rick Wakeman has presented an ambivalent view of the album, largely a negative one, tainted by his
fractured relationship with the other band members resulting in him leaving the band soon after the album's release.
Now he admits he has found ways to play the keyboard parts which opens the music up to subtle nuances and new
interpretations. Interesting because Rick Wakeman has no definitive version of Journey to the Centre of the Earth
either, but I think in the case of Revealing, Rick is constrained by it's lack of melodic lines and is prepared to dismiss
the work prematurely. The difference between the two pieces is that Rick is both composer and performer on Journey
and mostly performer on Revealing. Should he just have accepted Jon Anderson's writings on Revealing and
performed Revealing like Paganini performs a violin concerto, inserting his own cadenzas into the music, allowing it to
breathe unrestrained by Anderson's score? Tales is the genesis of Jon Anderson who co-wrote the album with Steve Howe while they were touring Australia. Each
of the four sections which take up one side of vinyl are based on shastra texts of knowledge from the teachings of
Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda. First, The Revealing Science of God ? Dance of the Dawn, then The Remembering ?
High the Memory, The Ancients ? Giants under the Sun and The Ritual ? Nous Sommes Du Soleil. For inspiration
during the recording process Jon Anderson decorated the studio like a farmyard with cutout cows and sheep and
picket fence, much like Brian Wilson drew inspiration from a sandpit and fireman's costume during the recording
sessions of Smile. This probably provides further ammunition for those criticizing the album both for it's length and
other excesses, who use this as an example of the band losing control over the album's conceptualization. Those of us who love TFTO at least have the consolation of knowing that despite the criticism of the music, Roger
Dean's surreal artwork for the album was voted best album cover of all time by Rolling Stone. I kind of like to think of
TFTO as a suite of songs for keyboards and percussion. Rick Wakeman is the reluctant keyboardist who pours himself
over the first two sides of music with his domineering Moog before exhausting himself out. Alan White is the
frustrated keyboardist, now the new Yes percussionist with difficult shoes to fill taking over from Bill Bruford, throwing
everything into the drums to fill the gaps vacated by Rick Wakeman's Moog, dominating the second half of the music.
Steve Howe is in the background with the key to how the music should all sound, gluing it all together with his guitar
with the occasional solo, while Chris Squire's bass permeates through the whole thing, much like Paul McCartney's
bass lines, he plays the melody lines on his bass under the guitars and keyboards. Jon Anderson expresses the shastra
texts with his high shrill voice over the top of the instruments. All the best lyrical ideas are on the first side, "Colored in pastures of chance dancing leaves cast spells of challenge"
and "Craving penetration offer links with the self-instructor's sharp and tender love as we took to the air, a picture of
distance". This is grand stuff full of ambition written during a time when the Vietnam war was raging and people were
turning to Eastern philosophies and Hindu texts as a way of reaching a state of spiritual enlightenment. The music
begins quietly on Revealing before the first verse and penetrating entry of Moog synthesizer, then a drum roll and
Howe's electric guitar. Then we get to the main chorus line and the temporary retreat of Wakeman's synths
acquiescing to the rhythm of the guitar playing. A sentimental interlude of gentle guitar and Mellotron and then a
more forceful and emotional Jon Anderson sings the next verse with the full power of Wakeman's Moog. Another
rhythmic section and coda to Anderson's lyric line "Glory to Sons" draws Wakeman to play one of the best Moog solos
of his career before Jon Anderson reprises the main verse at the end. The Remembering, on the second side, is a more, folksy Yes with Howe's lute playing in the middle section and
Wakeman switching from Moog to mostly organ. Flute/ recorder introduces the main theme which is pastoral and
bucolic. There is a frolicking main melody line with some beautiful electric guitar going over the top of the lute before
it speeds up into keyboards again and back to lute and recorder. There is some very whiny Moog from Wakeman near
the end with Squire chipping in with arpeggio bass lines and a complex mixture of sounds and choruses which brings
it all to an end. The third side, The Ancient, is where Rick Wakeman abdicates his role as chief soloist and Alan White takes over as the
main driving force on drumsticks and cymbals amid a type of jazz fusion with Steve Howe's electric guitar. Wakeman's
Moog is still there but plays a secondary role. The playing conjures up something prehistoric where you half expect
dinosaurs to appear. When the mayhem stops Steve Howe's acoustic guitar takes over. The Ritual, on side four, is the piece of music from TFTO most performed in live concerts. I think it's the weakest of the
four pieces. It has the lush melody line of "Nous Sommes Du Soleil" which Jon Anderson sings beautifully. It builds into
a cacophony of drums and cymbals at the end and has some sublime Squire bass lines and a quote on Steve Howe's
electric guitar from Close to the Edge. Perhaps the critics are right. TFTO isn't Close to the Edge. It's over the edge. Still, what do we expect from the artists and musicians we venerate, to do? Reach for the stars and fail or succeed at the bland conformity we have today? In 1969 humankind landed on the moon. Fifty years later we're still waiting to get to Mars.
iluvmarillion |
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