talloplanic views

By Arell

Yes. Yes indeed.

A documentary about the genesis, musical styles and construction of Yes's classic album, Close to the Edge, was this evening's watching.  Few would disagree that this was their best work.  It is: it still sounds fresh and interesting, over 50 years later.

The first song and the title track, takes up the entirety of Side One (or half the album's length if you're watching on CD).  If you released an album these days with just three songs on it, you'd be laughed out of HMV.  But this was 1972 and you could have polyrhythmic, polychordal, atonal runs, segue into modal shifts underpinned by ascending chromaticism, garnish with lashings of jangly guitar, crunching Rickenbacker and sprinkle with millions of notes on Hammond and Moog and Mellotron. Heck, let's throw in some church organ while we're at it.  For an encore, have the lyrics based on Herman Hesse, and make the dust jacket a full fold-out thing painted with mystical landscapes that looked like Salvador Dali was trying to do volcanic islands in the sea.

It then went to number 4 in the UK album charts, and number 3 in America.  Crikey.

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