01	Close To The Edge						18:40
	02	And You And I						10:09
	03	Siberian Khatru						08:55

Date of release Sept, 13 1972
1972 Atlantic Recording Corporation
SD 19133-2
Atlantic (A2-19133)
UK 1972

Jon Anderson, vocals;
Bill Bruford, percussion;
Steve Howe, guitars, vocals;
Chris Squire, bass, vocals;
Rick Wakeman, keyboards

Tracklist:
1. Close to the Edge — 18:50
a. The Solid Time of Change
b. Total Mass Retain
c. I Get Up I Get Down
d. Seasons of Man
2. And You and I — 10:09
a. Cord of Life
b. Eclipse
c. The Preacher the Teacher
d. Apocalypse
3. Siberian Khatru — 8:57

Bob Eichler:
Since reviews of this album tend to be overwhelmingly positive, I'll play devil's advocate and say that I think the disc may be a bit overrated. It's not my favorite Yes album (although I'll certainly take it over Going For the One, Tormato, or almost anything the band did in the 90s). The title track starts and ends well, and has some impressive stuff in between, but it also drags in places and seems to have been padded out a little to make it fill an album side. The popularity of "And You And I" has always kind of baffled me - it's an OK song but certainly not a classic. "Siberian Khatru" is the only consistently great song on the album, IMHO.
Although the album may be somewhat overrated, it is still a cornerstone of symphonic prog...hell, of prog music period. So anyone who considers themselves a prog fan should hear the album, just don't be surprised if it's not the greatest thing you've ever heard.

Sean McFee:
What can be said about what has to be one of the greatest achievements in progressive rock history? Are there sufficient superlatives? I will try to temper this review with at least a token bit of negativity.
There is no guarantee one will love this album. Perhaps Anderson's vocals, in the upper range, will not be pleasing to everyone. Maybe the "cosmic" lyrics, which make little literal sense, will be a turn-off. Perhaps hard-core RIO fans will shun the symphonic celebration of this album. Who can say?
What I do know is that this a thoroughly impressive piece of work. Parts are similar to Yes' previous material, combining a rock sensibility with a progressive virtuosity. At the same time, an attempt is made at something more grand (and, some would say, pretentious) in the Rite of Spring-ish opening, combination of various themes into multi-part epics and Anderson's increasingly cosmic hippy lyrics.
So why is this album widely considered Yes' magnum opus? I believe it is the development of their previous sound into the grand statement that has done this; while their next two albums have the perception among many as having gone too far, Close to the Edge retains, in places, the rock element that reminds people not to take something too seriously, while evolving the band, wittingly or not, into a stage of composing rock symphonies.
If you listen to progressive rock and don't yet have this album, stop reading this web-page and go buy a copy. (Better yet, just point your browser at one of the many on-line stores, order it, and then keep reading!). This album, whether you like it or not, is simply a prerequisite to understanding what symphonic prog is all about.

Joe McGlinchey:
I've already tried to write the review for this album a billion times, and each time I end up erasing it, finding it exhausting and futile to capture my experience in words. That should tell you something. Though I almost never play this one nowadays, this is simply a landmark album to me, and nothing less. It changed the way I listened to rock music, and was the initial wellspring from which my curiosity for this type of rock music fully and unremittingly began. "And You and I" is still the most perfectly constructed 10-minute rock song in the world to me. "Siberian Khatru" still makes me feel like a carefree teenager once again, and if I could choose one memory from my wrteched youth to relive it would probably be gazing at the stars on the roof of my house while listening to "I Get Up I Get Down". And there you have it. Now I'm going to hit the"send" key before I erase this!

Eric Porter:
This is Yes at the height of their creative powers. An essential recording for all progressive collections. This contains just three pieces of music; the epic "Close to the Edge", the heavy rocking of "Siberian Khatru", and the soaring beauty of "And You And I". Bill Bruford left Yes after this to join King Crimson. "Close To The Edge" is broken into various sections. Everything from sound effects to the avant-garde, beautiful vocals; catchy. Wakeman creates some wonderful atmosphere throughout but I especially enjoy the Mellotron and the beautiful church-like organ section. "And You And I" is simple yet dramatic. Again Wakeman's Mellotron, this time mixed with some slide (or lap steel) played by Howe create the perfect music for Anderson's soaring vocals."Siberian Khatru" ends the CD and is very heavy - this one rocks. Some nice guitar work from Howe on this one as well. A great opening to say the least. I have never heard anything the band has done since that stands upto this record overall (though they have come close). Essential!

Brandon Wu:
Being one of the bonafide classics of the prog genre, Close to the Edge is something that probably 90% of the readers on this site have heard. It is my favorite Yes album, almost entirely thanks to the title suite, a fantastic piece which has a logical progression between emotions and musical devices. Constructed, as Ed Macan points out in his in-depth analysis of the piece in his book Rocking the Classics, in a form very similar to the classical sonata-allegro form, "Close to the Edge" is a masterpiece of composition and can be seen as the pinnacle of the band's achievement. Squire's bass in particular helps move the piece along, changing context as the music and mood changes. The percussive, syncopated line he plays in the second movement in particular does much to create the emotion found in the piece. My only complaint is that the third movement (the development and/or slow movement, if you will) seems to drag a bit even though its construction and progression makes perfect sense. The other two pieces on the album are more straightforward, both of them rollicking mid-length songs in the best Yes tradition. "Siberian Khatru" in particular features a great jam which seems almost fusion-influenced. A great album, and a deserved classic.


Николай Алексеенко: После выпуска третьего альбома The Yes Album, из группы уходит клавишник Кайе, и его заменяет Рик Уэйкман - выпускник Королевской Академии, управлявшийся со множеством инструментов и привнесший в группу совершенно удивительное звучание. В этом поистине золотом составе (Андерсон, Сквайр, Брафорд, Хоу и Уэйкман) Yes записали два диска (Fragile в 1971 году и Close To The Edge в 1972) и заслуженно стали одними из классиков Прогрессивного Рока. Fragile оказался немного разрозненным - в нем помимо 3х длинных композиций были небольшие треки на 1-2 минуты, где каждый из музыкантов демонстрировал свое мастерство. Зато пятый альбом группы, Close To The Edge явил собой подлинный шедевр. Это первый из трех (вместе с последовавшими за ним Tales from Topographic Oceans и Relayer) лучших альбомов Yes за всю их историю, собственно и определивших лицо группы на многие годы вперед, а также послуживших примером для множества других молодых коллективов. Он состоит всего из трех вещей длительностью в 19,10 и 9 минут, каждая из которых отличается удивительной цельностью, техничностью и красотой. Все пять участников группы просто безупречны: голос Андерсона стал выше, в нем появилась даже некая магия, с помощью которой сознание слушателя напрочь сливается с музыкой, особенно в медитативных вещах вроде "I Get Up, I Get Down". Таланты Хоу и Уэйкмана просто непередаваемы - особенно на этом диске заметен Уэйкман, с помощью множества различных синтезаторов и технических приемов "раскрасивший" игру остальных музыкантов. Не зря его в то время начали сравнивать с Кейтом Эмерсоном из ELP, уже прославившимся своей виртуозностью. Сквайр и Бруфорд также отлично играют, создавая скелет ритм-секции. Красивейшее полотно аранжировок музыкантов (например, очень интересное место в самом начале - The Solid Time Of Change), покрывшее изначально немного примитивные мелодии Андерсона, делает музыку группы сложной, так что при каждом прослушивании обязательно открывается что-то новое. Первые две вещи в основе своей неторопливы, созерцательны, но при этом ни в коей мере не скучны. Третья поживее и побыстрее предыдущих - в ней можно насладиться лежащей на поверхности скоростной игрой Хоу, но она не так композиционно совершенна, как остальные.

Оценка: один из лучших альбомов Арт-Рока вообще, 10 из 10.





YES - CLOSE TO THE EDGE

About the Band

Yes was formed in 1968 with Jon Anderson (vocals), Chris Squire (bass, vocals), Peter Banks (guitar, vocals), Tony Kaye (keyboards), and Bill Bruford (drums). Many different line-ups, re-unions and subsequent splits would follow... The breakthrough for Yes came when Peter Banks was replaced by Steve Howe for their first truely succesfull album: The Yes Album (1971). Some troubles between Steve Howe and Tony Kaye later resulted in the replacement of Kaye by Rick Wakeman. With this line-up, Yes recorded two albums: Fragile (1972) and Close to the Edge (1972). Many people feared that after Fragile , Yes would continue in that direction and come up with even more complex songs, even more based on the individual skills of the musicians in the band. Fortunately for them, Close To The Edge contains beautiful melodies and harmonies. After the completion of Close To The Edge, Bill Bruford said goodbye (for a while) to join King Crimson. One of the reasons was that Squires could go on and on about whether these two bars should be played in F or F minor, a sign for Bruford to take a nap. When he woke up, Squires was still busy.... Another reason was that he thought that Close to the Edge was the best Yes could do and everything after it would just be "Son of Close to the Edge". According to Bruford, the whole band was in a permenent state of friction, since all five had completely different social backgrounds. To quote him: "I mean I'd never met anyone like Jon Anderson in my life! I couldn't understand physically what he was saying, he had a very strange accent from the north of England. He speaks in strange sentences that nobody can understand. It was chaos... "

The Making of ...

Some consider Close to the Edge to be a masterpiece of progressive rock, and others consider it to be a prime example of what terrible music progressive rock actually is. We at DPRP mostly agreed on the first point and therefore dicided that Close To The Edge could not be left out of our Counting Out Time. The choice for Close To The Edge as the prime example of a Yes album also stems from the fact that it is the only Yes album ever to reach a number 1 position in the Dutch album charts...! In Great Britain, Close to the Edge reached a number 4 position in the album charts.

Close To The Edge features only three songs. The title song takes up a whole album side, something that Yes would do again with Relayer and Tales from Topographic Oceans, where each of the four songs takes up one side of an LP. The album has been written remarkably quickly (note that Fragile is of 1972 as well!) considering the recording procedure: at times they recorded two minutes of music, put the whole equipement in a van for a gig in Scotland, drove back and build the whole set up again in the studio with a completely different sound image. Fortunately, they had Offord to put things right again...! According to some legends, the title track has been composed mainly by Eddy Offord putting together bits of tape that the band had recorded. Apparently, it once happened that they had a couple of remarkably great pieces of music on pieces of tape, went to bed, woke up next morning and could'nt find Eddie Offord. When they called him, he was under a table, looking for the pieces of tape with those great movements...which he couldn't find anymore. So instead they just used some other riffs they found on tape.... Perhaps this album is the very first "cut and paste" album (note that with computers nowadays, bands can do this themselves at home)! When you listen carefully, you can still hear this production process.

The Songs

Close to the Edge, the title track, based on Hesse's "Siddharta" consists of four movements. The first, The Solid Time of Change opens with tweeting birds and then going into a frantic piece of bass, drum and guitar work. The bass and guitar lay down a track and the guitar just plays over and under it, at times interrupted by an Anderson "Aaahhhh". Then, the main melody is played for the first time and the first vocal part starts. In this part there is a link with the third movement: "I Get Up, I Get Down" is featured already. In fact, although the four movements are mentioned seperately, they do not differ much from each other in terms of vocals and flow fluently into each other. In part two, Total Mass Retain, there is a quiet part, with beautiful keyboard work by Wakeman and the sound of falling drops of water. Then part three, I Get Up, I Get Down is entered, with beautiful vocal harmonies of Anderson, Squires and Howe. Melodic lines weave into each other reaching a climax with Wakeman taking over and playing a bombastic church organ. Seasons of Man starts suddenly with a very complicated bass and guitar line. A Wakeman percussion organ solo starts and leads into the vocal part of Seasons of Man. Here, almost all the melodic movements of the previous parts are revisited. The song then ends as it began, with bird sounds.

The second half of the album begins with And You And I, perhaps the most `commercial' song on the album. In this song, Jon Anderson is the dominant person, both with his vocal appearance and his lyrics. This song also consists of several parts: Cord Of Life begins with an acoustic guitar. The vocal section of this work becomes really complex at a certain moment, where not only two melodic lines intertwine, but also Squire's bass is prominent in a rather odd chord. Eclipse features a Wakeman solo and is more or less the climax of the previous movement. The Preacher The Teacher can be considered a separate song. It features different tempo changes and beautiful vocal harmonies. On some albums, the last part is called Apocalypse (on my LP version this is not mentioned as a seperate part, it is just the final of The Preacher The Teacher). It is basically a reprise of the final of Cord Of Life.

The third and last song on the album is Siberian Khatru. This song was featured as the concert opener on the 1991 Union tour. It opens with a strong guitar riff by Steve Howe. It then enters what is probably the most "rocky" part of the album with strong drumming by Bruford and dito bass work. Wakeman's keyboard work is more on the background here, adding to the sound rather than dominating it. A worthy closing of the album.


by: Remco Schoenmakers. Thank you Erwin de Blok for providing me with some of the anecdotes!



Yes - Close to the Edge

Member: I.M. Weasel

Close to the Edge is Yes' 5th studio album, and features what many consider to be the definitive Yes lineup: Steve Howe on guitar, Jon Anderson on vocals, Chris Squire on bass, Rick Wakeman on Keyboards, and Bill Bruford on Drums. CTTE is also considered by many Yes fans and Progressive Rock fans alike as the peak of Yes' output, and perhaps represents the peak of Prog rock in general. This album is divided into 3 songs: the epic sidelong "Close to the Edge" then a 10-minute ballad "And You and I" followed by a 9-minute rock song "Siberian Khatru".

CTTE starts off with the title track, "Close to the Edge", which is divided into four sections. This song is considered by many to be the definitive Yes side-long epic, and it certainly lives up to much of the praise it has. CTTE starts off with ambient forest and ocean noises before it all seems to swirl together before an explosion of supercharged Yes noise. Steve Howe plays a frantic solo at the beginning of the song amidst frenzied playing by the rest of the band. This goes on for about 4 minutes until it culminates into the main "riff" of the song; then starts Anderson with some of his most profound lyrics. Much has been discussed about the actual meaning of the lyrics but they are supposedly based upon ancient scriptures. After the first two verses, the song moves into its 3rd section, known as "I get up, I get down". This is as beautiful a passage of music as Yes has ever done, with some incredible backing vocals. This culminates with a monstrous-sounding Wakeman organ section, then another explosion launching us into a section of music even more frenzied than at the beginning. Wakeman plays an impressive solo here, perhaps one of his best and easily one of the most distinct in all of Prog Rock. The song closes out with the final verse by Anderson, and it ends much the same way it began, with many ambient noises fading out. Chris Squire's bass playing throughout the entire song is bone rattling and melodic at the same time, not to mention his backing vocals are key.

Next is "And You and I", a favorite among many Yes fans, and a concert standard. This song is mainly a showcase for Steve Howe's brilliant slide guitar work, but also features some great acoustic guitar by Howe, as well as some great backing vocals and lyrics by Anderson and backing vocals by Squire. However, "And You and I" is not one of my favorite Yes songs, but I will admit after hearing it live on this past years' Symphonic Tour, it took on a grandeur and beauty I had never seen before.

Finally, the album ends with the rocker "Siberian Khatru". When I first heard the CTTE album, this was the song I gravitated most towards. The song features a strange, almost psycho guitar riff and a great middle section where Howe and Wakeman trade off solos. The lyrics are again another high point, yet still cryptic.

An interesting note to this album, this would be Bill Brufords final association with Yes until the late 80s/early 90s, when the ABWH and Union projects took place. Alan White took over right before the tour was to begin, and you can hear his interpretations of Brufords drumming on the live Yessongs. Even though White is an accomplished drummer, in my opinion he does not match the brilliance that Bruford achieved here. There is a reason why this is considered the definitive lineup/album of this band. Wakeman, Howe, Squire, Anderson, and Bruford are all top class musicians at the top of their game here, and this ranks as a sure "must have" for any fan of the band Yes or Progressive Rock in general.