SOUNDTRACK: YES-Relayer (1974).
After Tales, Rick Wakeman left and the band decided to get back to business. So they made an album kind of like Close to Edge. Relayer is a dark album which didn’t quite bring the band back from the brink (even if there were only 3 songs and one was 20 minutes long). It did sell well, though, even if there wasn’t any real radio airplay.
I happened to really like this album in college (my friend Sean introduced me to it). And there are moments here that I think are great, but I can also see that it is not quite as user friendly as CttE.
I love the way “The Gates of Delirium” opens with guitar harmonics and some loud bashes of noise (good to see Squire and White asserting themselves again). The lyrics come in around 2 minutes in and it’s a very sweet and interesting opening. The guitar lines grow more complex as the song progresses. Anderson says that it is a war song, with a prelude, a charge, a victory tune, and peace at the end, with hope for the future. The “listen” section is quite catchy and moves along very well.
Around 5 minutes, the song changes into more of an instrumental sound (the charge, perhaps?) A great riff begins at 8 minutes with a very heavy section (the battle?) beginning as well. Squire takes over around 10 minutes and then the chaos befalls the song. Anderson and White stopped by a scrap yard and bought metal car parts which were used as percussion during the song’s battle section. During the battle section, White formed a tower of the parts and pushed it over to make a crashing sound.
Patrick Moraz (who later played with the Moody Blues) took over for Rick Wakeman on this album and the difference is notable. Moraz adds good keyboard sounds, but it is so clearly not Wakeman–there’s no flourishes or frills (one imagines he would have added some pretty impressive things to this battle scene).
At around 13 the battle ends and a new riff comes out–uplifting but not overtly so. Then things mellow out at around 15 minutes, with some washes of sound. The biggest surprise comes around 16 minutes when the song turns very pretty with a slow echoey section known as the “Soon” section. This section, which is about 5 minutes, was released as a single.
Track 2 “Sound Chaser” opens with a weird keyboard sound and then some chaotic drumming and bass (it’s loud and cool). This is their jazz fusion song with drumming that’s all over the place and some cool riffs. There are vocals (it’s hard to imagine them fitting vocals on to the riffage). And then around 3 minutes the song turns into a big time guitar section with a lengthy dramatic solo and then Moraz’ keys underneath. At 5 and a half minutes the songs mellow out an Anderson begins singing a gentle passage. Then a little after 6 minutes the songs repeats with the chaos of the opening and that cool riff. But this time, a noisy guitar picks up afterwards and a new riff begins and slows down until the unusual “cha cha cha/cha cha” section begins. It’s followed by a wild keyboard solo from Moraz.
“To Be Over” opens with some more gentle notes as it slowly builds. Sitar plays over the notes. This is a mellow track with lovely harmony vocals. There’s an interesting slide guitar section in the middle of the song. It shifts to a very typical Steve Howe guitar solo after that (very staccato and interesting). By 5 and half minutes there’s big harmony vocals and then around 7 and a half minutes the song breaks into a new, catchier section, with a cool keyboard outro.
It’s not as immediate and grabbing as previous Yes albums, but I still think it’s pretty great.
Since almost every Yes album had different personnel, I’m going to keep a running tally here. Here we have a new keyboardist, although Wakeman would soon be back.
Chris Squire-bass
John Anderson-vocals
Alan White (#2)-drums
Patrick Moraz (#3 replaced Rick Wakeman)-keyboards
Steve Howe (#2)-guitar
[READ: March 24, 2015] “The Route”
I’m generally puzzled about the fiction in Lucky Peach. It’s usually food related, which makes sense. But this one wasn’t especially. And then at the end of the story to see that it was originally published in Escapes in 1990 just makes the whole thing seem odd. But hey, they can publish what they want, right?
The story is about a married couple–she is a youngster and he is middle-aged. Their marriage is poor and so they go on a road trip from New York.
Each entry in the story is about a spot and what they did that day–traveling through Connecticut and Spotsylvania, Virginia. Until they get to North Carolina where he is bitten by a bat.
And this is evidently, fatal.
They continue on South, with this soon to be fatality proving to be an aphrodisiac. They go through Georgia and into Florida. And they finally get to Mile 0 in Key West.
The whole story was strange and unsettling and I really didn’t get a lot out of it. It seems odd that they would bother to reprint it here.
~~~~~~~~
The rest of the issue was, as usual, excellent.
There were several articles about wheat and other grains and interviews with different chefs.
But my favorite article was the one about Colonial Chocolate (and how Mars got involved). And my second was about the Monopoly game at McDonalds which I’ve never played and had no idea was over 25 years old.
The theme of the issue is obsession, and there are obsessions about endives (pronounced ondeev) and Pizza (including the guy with the record for most pizza boxes) and so much more.
The story about a Jewish man and his love of pork was interesting, especially the part about pork roll:
She takes a bite and her eyes roll back. Then she hands it to me.
As I dig into my first Taylor Pork Roll I realize that everything I appreciated in the ham… is more concentrated in this superior sandwich. It’s saltier porkier and smokier and the flavor lingers on the tongue…. It’s like a ham sandwich squared.
There’s also a fascinating look at Ranch dressing and its belovedness in West Virginia.
I may not always love the stories, but Lucky Peach continues to be a great magazine.
I Just Read About That... 