Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans
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On December 7, 1973 “Yes” released their sixth studio album “Tales from Topographic Oceans”.
This was the moment where progressive rock reached its most ambitious, most fearless and most divisive point. A double album made of four side long epics, written at the height of the band’s confidence and tension, and recorded in the strange glow that came after the triumphs of “Fragile”. It was the sound of a band pushing every boundary at once, length, structure, spirituality, musicianship, as if rock music suddenly had no ceiling.
This period in the story of "Yes" was turbulent and electric. Jon Anderson dove deep into Eastern philosophy, drawing inspiration from Paramahansa Yogananda’s writings and building a full album around the idea of four shastras, four spiritual paths represented by each epic movement, that range between 18 and 21 minutes each. Steve Howe embraced the challenge, expanding his guitar palette, weaving acoustic textures into the sprawling structures. Chris Squire, the heartbeat of the band, delivered some of his boldest and most melodic bass work. Rick Wakeman struggled with the direction and the length but contributed textures, colors and moments of brilliance that shaped the album. Alan White, still new in the lineup, found himself navigating compositions that shifted every few minutes into new tempos, new moods, new landscapes.
The recording sessions at "Morgan Studios" became legendary for their surreal atmosphere, carpets, foliage, dim lighting, almost an attempt to turn the studio into the topographic world the music was trying to describe. Jon Anderson decorated the studio with flowers, plants, and cardboard cutouts of cows and sheep. White picket fences were placed around Rick Wakeman’s keyboards, and amplifiers were set on stacks of hay. When "Black Sabbath" moved into the neighboring studio to record "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath", Ozzy Osbourne recalled seeing a model cow with electronic udders and a small barn in the corner, “like a kid’s plaything.”
The opening piece, “The Revealing Science of God (Dance of the Dawn)”, is where the album shows its heart. It moves slowly but gracefully, building layers of harmonies and repeated motifs until the whole band locks into a majestic flow. Jon Anderson’s voice takes its time, floating over Steve Howe’s melodic climbing lines and solos which he admits were influenced by Frank Zappa, with Chris Squire carving thunder beneath. The track was originally 28 minutes long, but was cut to fit the time constraints of a record.
“The Remembering (High the Memory)” is the dreamiest and most atmospheric of the four movements, softer edges, slow tides of keyboards, a sense of searching. Anderson described it as "a calm sea of music" and wanted the band to play like the sea. There is beauty in its patience, in its willingness to stretch themes until they shimmer. At moments it drifts, but in those minutes where everything aligns, it becomes one of the band’s most hypnotic pieces. Howe plays here various instruments like Danelectro electric sitar, lute, and acoustic guitar.
“The Ancient (Giants Under the Sun)” is the most chaotic, the most challenging, the moment where the album leans hardest into avant garde territory. Alan White’s percussion spreads across the stereo like a ritual dance, Steve Howe merges sharp electric lines with dissonant clashes, steel guitar and a Spanish Ramirez acoustic guitar, and Rick Wakeman’s keyboards move between textures as if refusing any single identity. And then, almost miraculously, it all dissolves into Howe’s gentle classical guitar passage which later became known as "Leaves of Green", one of the most human and intimate moments the band ever captured.
“Ritual (Nous Sommes du Soleil)”, the closing side, gathers everything that came before and explodes it into one final 20 minute ceremony. Anderson described its bass and drum solos as the fight and struggle between "sources of evil and pure love" Chris Squire’s bass roars with impossible size, Alan White (who wrote the piano sequence for the closing "Nous sommes du soleil" section) delivers the extended percussion ritual, and Anderson sings with spiritual conviction. It feels like a farewell to the epic format the band had perfected, a monument lifted into the sky as the golden age of classic "Yes" approached its turning point.
Upon release, “Tales from Topographic Oceans” split the rock world in half. Critics attacked its length and ambition, while fans debated its meaning, its structure, its purpose. Even inside the band, the cracks widened. Wakeman left shortly after the tour, exhausted from the conceptual weight. But with time, perspective softened. Today the album stands as one of progressive rock’s boldest statements, a document of a band unafraid to risk everything in search of transcendence.
It is not an easy album. It is not a perfect album. But it is an album unlike any other, spacious, spiritual, overwhelming, flawed, breathtaking. “Tales from Topographic Oceans” is immersion, commitment, surrender. It demands patience, but it rewards imagination.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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