FILTER REISSUES

All at sea

The prog giants’ much maligned and misunderstood 1973 concept album reappears in deluxe expanded and enhanced form. Mark Blake braves a deep dive.

Yes

★★★★

Tales From Topographic Oceans

RHINO. CD/DL/LP/BR

ONE DAY in September 1973, the producer Eddie Offord was rummaging for his car keys outside London’s Morgan Studios, and placed the master tapes of Yes’s new LP, Tales From Topographic Oceans, on the roof of the vehicle. Apparently, Offord forgot they were there and sped away, sending the precious spools flying into Willesden High Road, where they narrowly avoided being flattened by a bus.

Was it a bad omen? Three months later, the usually partisan Melody Maker described the record as “distinctly boring” and “a test of endurance”. Now, over half a century on, the group’s contentious sixth album returns as a 12-CD, two-LP, Blu-ray box set.

There’s a lot of Yes here: crucially, a remastered take on the original LP and progressive rock handyman Steven Wilson’s new mix and instrumental version of the same. But there are also demos, an Atmos mix, single edits, and extracts from shows in Zurich and, most probably, Cardiff and Manchester (the tapes weren’t marked, but it’s an educated guess, according to Yes guru and sleevenotes author Syd Schwartz).

First things first: this package is aimed squarely at those for whom Yes’s Tales… are as sacred as the Sanskrit texts they’re based upon. Yes followers who consider it one of their weaker LPs may find it better than they remembered. Everybody else should just look away now.

The idea for Yes’s only double concept album began in March 1973, when their lead vocalist Jon Anderson attended ex-drummer Bill Bruford’s wedding bash. Here, King Crimson’s percussionist Jamie Muir gifted him a copy of the Indian teacher Paramahansa Yogananda’s 1946 memoir, Autobiography Of A Yogi. Muir promptly left King Crimson to become a monk at Scotland’s Buddhist Samye Ling Monastery, and Anderson experienced a creative epiphany.

Touring America, Anderson and guitarist Steve Howe plotted a four-sided work inspired by Yogananda’s mention of four Sanskrit scriptures, or shastras. Very loosely inspired, because in tackling themes of spirituality, cosmology and wisdom, the lyrics are never preachy and, like all Yes lyrics, open to interpretation: sweet gentle stuff about “tallest rainbows”, “skylines” and the like.

Yes had previous form in this area. The title track of their last album, ’72’s Close To The Edge, was inspired by Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, and ran for one whole side. Anderson and Howe pitched their idea to bassist Chris Squire, keyboard player Rick Wakeman and newly appointed ex-Plastic Ono Band drummer Alan White as “four Close To The Edges”.

Remarkably, Yes created these 90 minutes of music in just three months. It might have benefitted from another three (presuming they didn’t decide to make it a triple album) as some of its best ideas are underused or buried under extraneous padding. And yet, Tales…’s mad vaulting ambition and Yes’s commitment deserve to be celebrated.

“Moments of musical chaos are usually followed by moments of peace.”

The churchy vocals introducing side one’s The Revealing Science Of God (Dance Of The Dawn) demonstrate how Anderson’s alto-tenor was Yes’s fifth instrument. Inspired by the Sanskrit word sruti relating to sacred texts passed down between generations, Anderson sings its opening lines as if chanting in an ashram. Squire’s bass and Wakeman’s Mini Moog help conjure up a stirring theme (with a hint of Stravinsky’s Lullaby from 1919’s The Firebird Suite), but everything appears to run out of puff after 11 and a half minutes. The group rediscover their sense of purpose later on during the piece’s synth-driven penultimate section.

But this sets the tone for the rest of the album. Really, Tales From Topographic Oceans has lots of good, even great bits; it’s the glue holding them together that generally comes up wanting. Rick Wakeman questioned the quality of the work and nicknamed the album ‘Tales From Toby’s Graphic Go-Kart’. Side two’s The Remembering (High The Memory) was supposed to be his showcase, but, according to his bandmates, Wakeman preferred playing darts with Black Sabbath in the studio next door. Frustratingly, there’s the bones of a sweet pop song, à la The Yes Album’s I’ve Seen All Good People, around the 9:23-minute mark, and an ethereal ambient section later on. But, as a whole, this side feels undercooked.

Yes started performing all of Tales From Topographic Oceans on their November ’73 UK tour, shortly before the album was released. This box includes three live versions of its gnarly third side, The Ancients (Giants Under The Sun), during which Chris Squire claimed he saw audience members falling asleep. At the time, future Clash/PiL guitarist Keith Levene had been working as a Yes roadie and later declared Steve Howe “the greatest fucking guitarist in the world”. It’s no huge leap from Howe buzzing like a furious wasp during The Ancients’… atonal overture to Levene doing the same on PiL’s Metal Box. “The idea that Tales From Topographic Oceans somehow ‘caused’ punk rock is one of music journalism’s laziest myths,” writes Syd Schwartz. “It’s the kind of line you hear passed around like a tray of lukewarm hors d’oeuvres at the MOJO Christmas party – ‘Prog went too far, so punk had to happen.’” Hors d’oeuvres? Oh, if only.

In 1973, the good patrons of Zurich’s Hallenstadion may have winced at or nodded off during some of these unfamiliar, off-piste moments. But Tales…’s sharper edges – the parts when it goes a bit ‘punk’ – make it a more intriguing listen today.

There’s a pattern here and in a lot of Yes’s work, in that moments of musical chaos are followed by moments of great peace. It happens when Howe’s acoustic guitar sweetens the pie during The Ancients… and again in the joyful coda to the fourth side’s Ritual (Nous Sommes Du Soleil). Meanwhile, Steven Wilson’s instrumental mix suggests Yes music is often better with Anderson’s uplifting voice involved.

The four single versions of each side – the director’s edits, if you like – lose the filler, bring the ‘songs’ to the fore, and invite the questions: how would these abridged pieces have fitted on other Yes records? And, if so, which ones?