Review of Asia

Released 1982

"And now you find yourself in '82. The disco hot spots hold no charm for you. You can concern yourself with bigger things. You catch a pearl and ride the dragon's wings"

When I picked up my second hand copy of Asia's eponymous first album, for one (Scottish) pound, I was unaware that this was a prog 'supergroup'. Although this is my fifty-first prog album, in as-close-as-I-can-manage-it chronological order of purchase, when money changed hands over the counter at Lost In Music in DeCourcey's arcade in Glasgow in 1985, I hadn't heard of John Wetton or Yes' Drama, had yet to hear a full album by Emerson, Lake and Palmer and was unaware of the connection with The Buggles.

I had, of course, heard Heat Of The Moment, a huge single from three years previously. One of my favourite albums of my late teens - long misplaced, I'm sad to say - was an AOR compilation called American Heartbeat. Most of the classic expected usual suspects were there, from Journey to Styx, Kansas to Quarterflash, Boston to Foreigner etc, and it also contained Heat Of The Moment. Therefore, I associated Asia with laid back American driving music rather than with the prog rock scene.

If truth be told, for some time, I actually listened to the album as an AOR album, seeing it as light relief from the existential angst of Van Der Graaf Generator or the complex signatures of Rush, not realising that Asia's band members had been responsible from some of the defining tracks, side long suites and triple live albums of the classic prog era.

Of course, I should have known better. Roger Dean's artwork for Asia is arguably amongst his most well known, due in no small part to it's huge commercial success.

The title track is one of the most ubiquitous AOR songs from the eighties. Wonderful big fuzzy riffing, stadium sized drumming, an echo laden vocal with remarkably catchy lyrics all combine to make a song which is very difficult not to sing along too and be impressed by. When I finally made the connection and noted that Steve Howe was on this record, I was stunned. I couldn't reconcile this aggressive, commercial style with the intricate playing I was so familiar with from Yes. Was there another great guitarist called Steve Howe?

Only Time Will Tell turns the commercial pop sensibility up to eleven. The keyboard intro (and repeated motif) could so easily have been from a track by Europe or Bon Jovi a few years later. It softens to a very Journey-esque, verse-chorus-verse structure, interspersed with another stunning thick powerful guitar and wave after wave of several different keyboard effects. At the time, I pictured John Wetton as a Jon Bon Jovi or David Lee Roth type poseur rather than an elder statesman of prog, with a track record in Family, King Crimson, UK et al.

Given that I had a tremendous dislike for Yes' broadly contemporary foray into commercial success with 90125, I can only put my enjoyment of this similarly styled effort down to my ignorance about Asia's pedigree. Sole Survivor would have been equally at home on 90125, which is amusing given Steve Howe's obvious displeasure in later years, when pressured into playing Trevor Rabin's 'licks' live.

The lack of variation on Asia is a bit wearing. Where there are a (very) few obvious prog moments on 90125, for example, hearing tracks such as One Step Closer in isolation, one would be mistaken for it being anything other than a straight forward pop song. An obviously well played pop song for sure, but not much more.

The intro to Time Again however, sounds like it could have been an outtake from Yes' Drama. It then veers oddly from by-the-books AOR to leaping between time signatures, never quite sure with it is pop or prog.

I think it is the eighties drum style employed by Carl Palmer which grates and frustrates: it is so formulaic and incredibly pedestrian when compared to his past performances. This is certainly true of Widest Dreams. It is clearly catchy. Catchy and horribly dull.

Without You has the same effect. It is intoxicating in its commercial sensibility, has stunning playing by Steve Howe, stupidly infectious lyrics and a keyboard accompaniment designed to get the zippos waving in the dark of an enormodome. It is impeccably done, but it still is prostituted by the nasty, nasty drumming, which, whether you like it or not, it is impossible not to tap your feet or thrum your fingers to. Before you know it, you are playing air guitar and swaying from side to side, singing along to the closing versus and chorus, thinking; "Stop it! This is silly! Where's my copy of Foxtrot?"

In short, it is an album of great contradiction: impeccable pop played by prog maestros, creating songs with hooks that you'll be singing the next day against your will.

Review of Yes' Close To The Edge

Released 1972

"The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes. A constant vogue of triumphs dislocate man, it seems. And space between the focus shape ascend knowledge of love. As song and chance develop time, lost social temperance rules above".

When referring to any new book or magazine around the subject of prog rock, sooner or later, within the first paragraph or so, usually in close conjunction with King Crimson, Genesis and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I found that Yes were almost universally acknowledged as masters of the genre. Close To The Edge was typically held up as their flagship work. As such, a dozen or so albums into my prog journey, and with The Yes Album already on my shelf and well respected, it was inevitable that I would turn to this, their fifth album, next.

As I touched on in my review of The Yes Album, I was aware of Roger Dean's logo from a young age. I actually remember sketching it on the cover of my Geography exercise book when I was thirteen or fourteen, alongside the logo' s of Black Sabbath, Status Quo and ELO. Whilst I was familiar with all of these bands, (Yes; even ELO) I couldn't have named a single Yes song or album. Now, a few years later, I was delighted that I had made the decision to purchase the first album to contain the iconic Yes logo proper. Terribly shallow, I know.

My 'Nice Price' edition of the album purchased in 1984, was single sleeve with a plain white inner sleeve. As such, it wasn't until I saw a friends older edition later at University - along with the majority of the rest of the 'classic era' albums - that I realised I was missing out on the the full spectacle of Roger Dean's fantastical landscape work.

I had been disappointed when I purchased The Yes Album to learn that Rick Wakeman wasn't yet in the group. Stories of his caped antics reached beyond the inner sanctum of the prog fan base to the mainstream. Noting that he was present and correct on Close To The Edge heightened my sense of anticipation. The fact that there were only three tracks and that the first was divided into four 'parts', with names like 'Total Mass Retain' were obvious give aways that this was a piece of prog.

I settled down in the early hours of the following morning, switched out the main overhead light, turned on the lamp with a red light bulb muted by an occasionally smouldering tea-towel, put on the headphones, placed the stylus on the vinyl and waited.

Like The Dark Side Of The Moon, Close To The Edge seemed to take an age before anything was picked up in the headphones. How to describe those first twittering sounds? I've always bizarrely pictured them as organic, pastoral or birdlike. These then quickly dissolved into a cacophony of odd time signatures, circling between keyboards, bass and guitar, round and round, repeating a complex motif, which was incredibly dense and difficult to penetrate. Like The Yes Album, the bass again appeared to dominate, weaving unorthodox patterns, further complicated by the stop /start drumming pattern underpinning it and a jazzy angular rapid guitar motif. A pattern would emerge before being replaced with another, and another. Then all would stop and Jon Anderson would utter a quick 'aaahhh' before it all commenced again become more and more complex.

After a few minutes, a form of calmness descends and an extraordinarily surreal lyric commences; utterly impenetrable and, to this day unfathomable to anyone I have ever met. Although the lyrics were nonsensical, the harmony, the 'fit' between the actual sound of the words as opposed to the meaning of the words and the nature of the music it accompanied was undeniably wonderfully effective.

As the title track moved through it's various parts, I could see why the term 'symphonic prog' had been applied to this album. Whilst much of this eighteen minute plus title track was too dense to take in that night, the centre piece - the passage preceding( I Get Up I Get Down) and including the cathedral of sound of the specular keyboard solo - grabbed my attention absolutely. I turned the volume up as loud as was comfortably possible while the reverbation of the church organ made me glow with excitment. Not since The Dark Side of The Moon had a an album pulled me in so deep and made me feel so protective of it completely.

While the utter unintelligibility of the lyrics of the epic title track and the odd but masterful muscianship made me smile, I found that I had tears in my eyes when confronted with And You
I. Although I couldn't fathom any logic behind Jon Anderson's lyrics, his delivery was impeccable and unmatched. Siberian Khatru passed in a bit of a daze; I was exhausted.

When the album finished, I immediately turned it over and played it again, recording it on the second side of my C90 cassette which already had The Yes Album on the other side. Wonderful times.

Review of Yes' The Yes Album

Released 1971

"Loneliness is a power that we possess to give or take away forever.
All I know can be shown by your acceptance
of the fact there shown before you".

I had a kind of subliminal awareness of Roger Dean's classic Yes logo from what feels like a very young age. As Yes were a major band, constantly in the music press and doing the stadium circuits during the mid seventies, somehow, given my tender years I seemed to know of Yes and their caped keyboard player, Rick Wakeman. I knew nothing about their music, just that they were a 'significant' band that existed just outside the mainstream. And for that reason alone, they interested me.

With a desire to delve further into the progressive rock world, and as I was reading anything and everything I could about the genre, I continually found references to the fact that Yes were revered proponents of the prog stable.

The Yes Album was my first Yes purchase based simply on the lack of availability of anything else in their catalogue in my home town. Having purposefully set out one day to purchase a Yes album, I was disappointed that the only one I could find didn't have a Roger Dean sleeve. I found the sleeve odd (and still do) and shrugged with resignation at the realisation that my previous theory about all prog rock albums being devoid of images of the band was clearly misguided. However disappointed I was about the sleeve, I went ahead with my purchase fully expecting to be let down by the music itself.

I wore a furrowed brow throughout the first airing of the album. This was very strange music. There were so many changes of time signature, of tempo and of mood in each song that it felt as though several different songs were being stitched together. The complexity of the instrumentation struck me at this time as pretentious. This concerned me greatly, as this was a common criticism hurled at the genre and especially at Yes themselves. On top of this, the bass was being used in ways I had never heard before; wandering all over songs, in what felt like the wrong places.

And then there was the voice and the lyrics. I had been told that you either loved or hated Jon Anderson's Lancastrian tenor stream of consciousness. On this first listen, I couldn't see myself falling into the former camp.

When the album finished, I put it away for a few days feeling as though I was out of my depth and perhaps simply too young to appreciate what many others felt was a worthy piece of music.

I have since learned that many great albums just don't work on the first listen. Some indeed take either many plays to register properly, or that you just have to be in the right mood and in the right place for it to 'click'. In the case of The Yes Album, my second listen worked due to the wearing of my headphones. When Steve Howe culminates the final part of Starship Trooper with a achingly wonderful piece of guitar work, I heard it entirely differently and was seriously impressed. Also, the first time around I hadn't picked up the 'subtle' interweaving of 'all we are saying, is give peace a chance' into the denouement of I've Seen All Good People. Now that I picked it up on the headphones, I could see that it was clever and that it worked.

Picking up these nuances made me listen more intently. It was then possible to be more receptive and respecting of Tony Kaye's keyboard work and to be impressed by the drummer, who clearly had jazz leanings. Very slowly, I even began to be drawn in by Jon Anderson's singing style. I couldn't make head nor tail of the lyrics, but I became enthralled by how the whole thing just worked. I wasn't hard to see why Yes' music divided music lovers in the way that it did, but I was delighted that now that it had clicked for me, I was moving into the inner sanctum of prog.

I still don't like the sleeve though.