hissyfit: Albums for Life: 52: Close to the Edge: Yes

Monday, 11 February 2013

Albums for Life: 52: Close to the Edge: Yes

'Now that it's all over and done,

Run to the sea, right to the sun,

Now that you find, now that you're whole...'

Uh?

I need to offload this one fast; it's been praying on my mind awhile... timely as I must keep this choice and the next out of my Top 50 just in case the Style Police come a calling...
I can hear the giggles and am already anticipating the inevitable chinese burns and wedgies that this will prompt, but I have to be honest about my past imperfect as I sit here, rubbing at the damned spot of pre-adolescence. This album is a bit like that pair of turquoise cowboy boots that you keep at the back of the wardrobe for that moment when they surely must come back into fashion...

They say that, if at the age of 13 'Lord of the Rings' is not your favourite book then there's something wrong with you and that, if at the age of 30 it's still your favourite novel, well... then there's something wrong with you.

This elicits a similar guilty reaction.

If you'd asked me for my favourite album between the age of 12 and 13 I would've had no hesitation; this and my number 51 choice were played to death in my dorm at boarding school. The tracks still smell of patchouli oil and spunky sheets to me.

This was the classic Anderson-Squire-Bruford-Howe-Wakeman line-up.

I vividly remember weeping (dear reader) when the, frankly ridiculous, beer swilling caped crusader that is Rick Wakeman left to go solo.
Anyone remember his string of concept albums?
'The Six Wives of Henry VIII'?
'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' that was perfumed on ice?
There was always a 'concept' in those days...
Meanwhile, back in bonkersville; I haven't got a clue what Jon Anderson was wailing on about, but when he hits the "seasons will pass you by, I get up, I get dooooown' bit on the title track I still get a bit giddy.

This profound nonsense was forever mapped in my memory by the brilliant landscapes of the otherworldly Roger Dean album covers as much as by the exhilarating, magnificently meaningless music that came from within the gatefold.
Concepts and climaxes; what's not to love?

7 comments:

Anonymous11 February 2013 at 22:24
I guess this is my elo out of the blue!
I've never heard a yes lp and the only track I've heard was the trevor horn produced owner of a lonely heart which might as well have been by a different band!
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Séamus Duggan12 February 2013 at 00:01
That's one of your get out of jail cards free cards used up then. And although you may be praying in your mind that the internet swallows this into anonymity I think you'll find that Yes, it was preying on your mind. And not just preying, if you listen it is actually EATING your mind. Soon you will find yourself performing a solo version of Star Wars while on roller skates.
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Tim Patrick12 February 2013 at 07:23
I'm not laughing here as I've got a few prog-rockers in my stack, and one of 'em is still in my top 50. Can't deny the impact of some of this vintage stuff on our history...

PS: Seamus, you've got the most imaginative zingers!
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Meetwood Flac12 February 2013 at 10:45
Oi you lot, stop dissing the Prog!!! I remember vividly turning up at my first day in Grammar School. Little 11 year old boy, one of only a few from my school who made it there. It was like Tom Brownwn's Schooldays, with Prefects, Houses, Fags, etc. I get to my form room, look at my desk and see a splendidly carved YES logo on the desk. It was magical. What was a YES? also, what was a CSNY?

Anyway, SInce those golden days, YES has been MY band!!! SO many memories. Buying the Music Book and trying to learn how to play those prog rock epics. For God sake, I was only 13!!

I drank in every note! I had a superb scrapbook containing all the photos, album reviews, basically anything I could get my hands on.Only to give it to someone who never gave it back, like LPs!! I won numerous radio competitions based on YES knowledge.

One of the most uplifting experiences of my young life was reading thse magical headlines on Melody Maker that bright summer's morning.(I used to be up the newsagents at 6.00am to get my copy every week) - Wakeman Rejoins Yes - AAAgh. Then they brought out Going For The One, which contains the still amazing Awaken. I remember them getting a 15 minute standing ovation after playing it live for the first time.

God, I could go on & on. Jon Anderson often sang words that made no sense, as he was more interested in the SOUND of the words in the song, not their meaning. Bowie later tried this approach.

So, Trev, don't be ashamed. Stand up & be proud. All those bands who have been awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards for being together for 10 Years. Yes as still going after 40+ and are still making relevant music for their fans.

Now, let's get onto Caravan's The Land of The Pink & Grey!!!!
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Hissyfit12 March 2013 at 23:48
I've got the Snow Goose....
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‘Jones’ is Trevor Jones; principle songwriter with the critically acclaimed duo Miracle Mile, where he works alongside collaborator, arranger and musical partner Marcus Cliffe. Together they have produced nine albums, the latest of which was 2012’s ‘In Cassidy’s Care’, rated ‘Album of the Month’ by HiFi News, with respected journalist Johnny Black noting that Miracle Mile were “far and away the most unfairly unsung musical wizards ever to emerge from this sceptered isle. Big on memorable tunes wrapped around honest-to-goodness emotionally involving lyrics.”

Trevor Jones has also previously produced four solo albums: ‘Hopeland’ (2009), ‘Keepers’, (2010), ‘To the Bone’ (2014) and ‘Happy Blue’ (2016). Co-produced again with Marcus Cliffe, ‘Carver’s Law is another triumph of intimacy.
Previous critical acclaim for Trevor Jones:

“Gorgeous, as ever. Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; gently beautiful and genuinely moving. You may cry.” The Sunday Times

“Masterpieces of subtlety and observation clothed in sumptuous, lush melodies.” R2

“Jones is in a class of one. Near-perfect explorations of the human heart. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me.” Americana UK

“Achingly tender.” Folk Radio UK

“Intellectually as well as emotionally engaging.” MOJO

"Meticulously orchestrated, careful and complex, this is canny songwriting leavened by bona fide humanity." Q

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.” Maverick

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard.” Uncut

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised. Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving” The Times

Miracle Mile: A User's Guide by Johnny Black

Despite being based in a home studio in a rural backwater on the outskirts of West London, Miracle Mile chose to name themselves after a fictional gold rush main street half a world away where, according to adventure yarn spinner Jack London, ragged 49ers would blow their hard-won nuggets on booze and broads.
They apply a similarly unorthodox approach to their career in general. The band’s core duo of singer/guitarist Trevor Jones and multi-instrumentalist/arranger Marcus Cliffe have been relentless in their pursuit of the perfect song. Not the fastest, the gnarliest or the loudest, not even the most instantly commercial, but the song whose melody, lyrics, arrangement, performance and spirit might stand the test of time, giving pleasure to listeners not just for years but centuries.
They’d be the first to admit they haven’t yet found that perfect song and maybe never will, but I’d argue that their albums — the documentary evidence of that search — deserve a place alongside the best work of time-tested tunesmiths as elevated as Randy Newman, Elvis Costello or Tom Waits.

Marcus Cliffe wasn’t yet on board when the first album, Bicycle Thieves, arrived in 1997 but already it was evident that frontman Jones didn’t fit in with the prevailing mode. There was no rage, bitterness or self-loathing in his songs and nothing at all turned up to eleven. Instead, he offered meticulously orchestrated slices of ordinary human life, transforming the mundane into the marvellous with carefully crafted lyrics sincerely delivered. Even here, though, the hypnotic sample-based "Recycletwo" revealed a willingness to experiment that marked Jones out as more than just a pop craftsman in the vein of Crowded House or Aztec Camera.

What had started essentially as a recording project had become a five-piece live band by the time the follow-up, Candids, was released in 1998. Loaded with nagging guitar hooks and dynamic vocal interplay, it included one particularly affecting piece, "Small Ad," which featured just one line of lyric, the heart-rending couplet, "Baby’s shoes, never used." With those four words, Jones conjured up a yawning abyss of grief that other writers might struggle to evoke in an entire album.

Jones quickly realised that live performance was not his forte and retired to the womb of the studio for 1999’s third album, Slow Fade, which also saw the birth of the partnership that would lift Miracle Mile higher still above the norm. Marcus Cliffe, in demand as a player for Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Daniel Lanois, Mark Knopfler and others, was drafted in on upright bass.
Immediately the music took a more intimate turn, with Jones exploring the little things that illuminate the big things. Almost every song offers up at least one unforgettable line, like "I'd rather be ashes than dust" in "Everybody Loved You," or the concept of filling the void left by his loss of faith "with despair and metalware" in "Starwatching."
Slow Fade was further enhanced by the delicately filigreed swirls and swoops of England’s finest steel guitar maestro, B.J. Cole, whose style sat so well with Jones and Cliffe that he has become virtually a full-time member of the band.

And then, out of nowhere, catastrophe struck. Trevor Jones’ beloved sister died in tragic circumstances. It’s typical of the man that, rather than wallowing in his grief as he had every right to do, he dealt with his loss in the quiet, honest dignity of "Sister Song," the achingly lovely tribute that concludes the fourth album, Alaska. It can’t have been coincidence that the album, despite its meltingly beautiful musical landscape, was named for one of the coldest places on earth.

By the time of Stories We Could Tell in 2004, Miracle Mile were drawing critical plaudits in every significant British magazine and newspaper, along with comparisons to such pop pluperfectionists as Prefab Sprout and the Blue Nile. Critics were noting that Miracle Mile was fast becoming a repository of timelessly romantic music fueled by the same shamelessly emotional human concerns that inspired the great standards. More than this, it was being noticed that while most bands go into decline after two or three albums, Miracle Mile were getting better, perhaps because they’d avoided the trap of trying to be contemporary, and had no need to be more outrageous than the competition, largely because they didn’t see music as a competitor sport.

The sixth album, Glow, showed up in 2005 and found Jones and Cliffe further expanding their musical palette mixing Celtic folksiness with slow, semi-industrial percussion on the inspirational "An Average Sadness," blending Badalamenti guitars with Bacharach horns on "What Kate Did Next," and opening "Strange Sympathy" with a beautifully synthesised string orchestration before letting the song melt seamlessly into a laid-back country-rock rumination on the gap between aspiration and acquisition. Glow was also their most lavishly packaged disc, gorgeously presented at no small cost to themselves.

Album No. 7, Limbo, offered fifteen songs overflowing with sensitively wrought melodies and heart-fluttering lyricism. If it’s not a contradiction in terms, Limbo was even more quietly passionate than usual, deliciously understated and, at times, devastatingly tear-jerking.

‘Cassidy’s Care’ followed in 2012 and received similar critical acclaim.
Miracle Mile may just be too concerned with timeless quality for their own short-term commercial good. They’ll never sink a fang into the jugular when they can plant a whisper of a kiss on that sensitive spot at the nape of the neck and set off a tiny ripple that will, in the fullness of time, explode in the heart. I, for one, wouldn’t want it any other way.
Johnny Black

“Trevor Jones finds the poetry in real life; Marcus Cliffe anchors it in the sweetest pop. Gorgeous as ever. You may cry.”
Sunday Times

"Gentle enchantment. The loveliest melodies you've ever heard."
UNCUT

“Gorgeous melodies, hooks galore, intelligent lyrics that demand and repay careful listening, beautifully produced instrumentation, and an overall effect that combines poignancy and joy in equal measure. Music and words come together in a state as close to perfection as makes no difference, and leaves you with a delicious ache that makes you hug yourself with the sheer overwhelming joy of hearing such wonderful music. The beauty on offer here is enough to make you weep. It did me."
Americana UK

“A little oasis illuminated by musical creativity, glimpsed like a lovely mirage. Intelligent tunefulness that doesn’t kowtow to passing trends has always been as rare as fish fingernails, but it’s here.” Mojo

“Classic pop songwriting, gorgeously realised” The Times

“Moves you to tears and refreshes the soul. Scintillating.”
Maverick

“A tender sadness. Songs that have universal resonance.”
Netrhythms

"Trevor Jones has produced a gorgeous pop album that few will hear — unless there’s justice in the world.’ The Wall Street Journal

“Jones has compiled possibly the finest catalogue of adult pop. Gently beautiful and genuinely moving”
The Sunday Times