Yes - Yessongs

Atlantic: 1973

For some – okay, many - this is Peak Yes, a collection of live recordings cribbing tunes from their best Phase 1 albums with most of the classic line-up intact. After this, they'd release Tales From Topographic Oceans, where casual folks finally had just about enough of prog-rock's highfalutin sense of self, and the personnel changes would come often. Heck, they started right in the middle of these tours, original drummer Bill Bruford replaced by Alan White on the fly. Considering ol' Alan's stuck with the band longer than anyone not named Chris Squire though, shouldn't he be considered the official Yes drummer over Bill?

Also, how crazy must that have been for Mr. White to get thrown into the band's overtly complex compositions with almost no prep? He was already an experienced drummer with The Alan Price Set and The Plastic Ono Band, so he adapted fine, but still. Just as well the lone drum solo in this 3LP set is one of the few Bruford recordings, towards the tail-end of Perpetual Change. Don't worry, Alan, you'll get many opportunities to shine in the ensuing decade.

Naturally, a pretentious rock band has to open their pretentious concerts with nothing less than a pretentious excerpt from Igor Stravinsky's Firebird Suite (Tomita must have noticed), but it does serve a wicked lead-in for Siberian Khatru. Following that, all the Yes classics show up: Heart Of The Sunrise, Roundabout, Close To The Edge, Yours Is No Disgrace, And You And I, plus plenty of solo showcases along the way. Can't deny the synth-dork in me gets all atwitter over hearing Rick Wakeman doing his thing on various keyboards in Excerpts From “The Six Wives Of Henry VIII”, and Chris has plenty of funky bass jams on a lengthier rendition of The Fish (Schindleria Praematurus). Plus how can you deny all that awesome shredding from Steve Howe! So much shredding from Steve Howe, just so much...

As for actual differences between these live and studio versions, everything on Yessongs feels looser. Sometimes it can throw you off, especially if you're used to hearing the perfectly polished studio takes, but once the band locks into their groove and go off (the crescendos in Heart Of The Sunrise, the sonic freak-outs of Close To The Edge, etc.), it's quite the exhilarating ride of musicianship.

If any song makes perfect sense in a live context, it's Starship Trooper. The Life Seeker portion is a chipper, happy piece, then goes into the reflective Disillusion, before heading for the final stretch of Würm, quite possibly the greatest 'dumb rock-out' composition in Yes' entire discography. The hook is stupid simple, instantly lodging itself into your brain matter, and it just builds, and builds, and builds, each band member getting solo action along the way before ending on a huge musical high. It's like an awesome, extended, in-the-zone Neil Young & Crazy Horse jam, but with tons more technical skill that never loses its soul of rock 'n' roll.

Vangelis - L'Apocalypse Des Animaux

Polydor: 1973/1991

Speaking of gathering music from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, there was one frequently used composition I was disappointed never appeared on the The Music Of Cosmos 2CD set. It wasn’t a one-off like Pink Floyd’s One Of These Days either – it appeared frequently, a droning bit of gentle, background ambience most memorably used during the ‘galaxy showcase’ in The Edge Of Forever. As the series repeatedly used Vangelis’ music, I suspected it was one of the Greek composer’s pieces as well; however, nothing like it appeared on Heaven & Hell or Albedo 0.39, the two albums Cosmos primarily cribbed music from. There were no original music credits available either, so I had no clue whether I was on the right track. Did I have any hope in solving this mystery?

With luck, I recently stumbled upon a website that had listed Cosmos’ original music cue sheet for each episode. A bit of sleuthing later, and I discovered I was indeed correct in the music being of Vangelis origin. What I hadn’t counted on was it originating from Mr. Papathanassiou’s very first album!

The piece, by the way, is called Création Du Monde, which appeared in the soundtrack for a mostly forgotten French nature documentary called L’Apocalypse Des Animaux. Story goes Vangelis, while still a part of psychedelic rock act Aphrodite’s Child, had begun writing incidental music intended for licensing out for shows of such sort. Frederic Rossif, who made the film, snatched the rights to these compositions, and thus formed the officially released soundtrack to L’Apocalypse Des Animaux. Not that the details terribly matter - the brief opening ‘jungle rhythm’ track aside (subtitled Generique), this LP may as well be considered Vangelis’ first official solo album.

What’s most fascinating about this music is just how far back it dates, and the undeniable influences it imparted. Création De Monde is Eno ambient half a decade before Music For Airports: droning ebbs and flows of synths pads, occasional calming plucks of strings or bells, and ten minutes of pure, floating bliss. Minimalism was kicking around, true, but not designed with such a relaxing approach to song craft. Even more ambient is La Mer Recommencée, which adds light cymbal washes to the droning synth work, leading into a crescendo as it plays out.

Or, if you’re more familiar with Vangelis’ later score work, La Petite Fille de la Mer captures the same delicate innocence of Carly’s Song. Likewise, Le Singe Bleu is all gentle keyboards and lonesome trumpet – not quite Bladerunner Blues, but certainly just as stirring. Stephen Halpern must have been playing close attention to those keyboard tones too, sounding quite similar to his Keynote series that kicked off the whole New Age movement.

And all this lovely music was originally wasted on images of animals. My mind boggles. Yeah, I can see Création Du Monde working with the sight of birds in flight, but Sagan had the right idea. This music far deserves the grandeur and scope of the galaxies.

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side Of The Moon

Capitol Records: 1973

One of two Pink Floyd albums you're supposed to have even if you're not much of a Pink Floyd fan. Hell, it's one of about a dozen rock albums you're supposed to have even if you're not much of a rock music fan. I do likes me some rockin' and some rollin', but the Floyds never hooked me, which is odd considering how much of a Banco de Gaia fanboy I am. Maybe I'll fall sway to their mopey, trippy charms some day.

You don't need to digest their discography to enjoy Dark Side Of The Moon though. This is a very good record, great, classic even. Don't take my word for it, just ask every single rock publication that has ever existed ever. Or if you don't believe me, throw on your local classic rock station to hear it for yourself. Chances are you'll hear almost all of it throughout the course of a day, maybe even the whole thing if you happen across a Pink Floyd tribute hour.

Still, this is an electronic music blog (most of the time), so I suppose I should mention some of the electronic things on this album. There's On The Run, the bloopy synth-effects second track that every young raver hears for the first time and thinks, “Holy shit, Pink Floyd could do that!? Maybe there's a remix of it!” And then they find said remix, which is nothing more than a 909 kick added or something equally lame, coming away disappointed by the wasted potential. Not that I was such a young raver, mind, but I did come across a few who thought they'd stumbled upon something revolutionary when discovering some white label bootleg of On The Run (Added Kick Mix).

Fortunately, there’re better remix efforts of Dark Side Of The Moon over the years, including Dub Side Of The Moon by the Easy Star All-Stars that got a lot of positive press at the time. I don't have that one, nor am I inclined to hear it if I'm honest. I like dub and I like Dark Side, but not at the same time, which is funny considering the studio trickery occurring in this album could be considered dub music as well.

Y’know, if I’m being honest about that, I’ll be honest about this: I wasn’t in the mood to hear Dark Side right now. It’s music that lets you savour a strong mope, best enjoyed on gray, wet, miserable, morning-after days that folks claim perfectly captures England’s stiff upper lip. I was in a good mood, dammit. The sky was blue and full of sun. I got new music in the mail. A lab mark I thought would bomb came back a near perfect. My back didn’t hurt. I had ice in my glass. Cheers, Mr. Pink & His Floyds, for ruining my day. Why do I have this again? Oh yeah, because I’m supposed to have it.

Alright, the music’s good too, great, classic even.