OPEN • Jon Anderson • a Grim appraisal
• So, when the fox saw the lion for the very first time … he trembled in fear, darted into the woods and hid himself, “Oh dear, this is too intimidating, he said in a terrible fluster,“this is much too disquieting!”
• The next day, however, he cautiously came hither but nestled himself in a tuft of grass at a safe distance and watched the movements of this very regal creature. Feeling pleased with the security of distance and locale he said, “Think I might be able to make it … but just barely.”
• Third time's a triumph and the fox is in close proximity with the magnificent beast. In the grip of euphoria you tend to pass the time of day with it. You saturate your mind with it. Analyze it. Break it down. It dissects you ... or, you dissect it with the fervour of an obsession: "I'll go with thee, cheek by jowl."
Security Tuft
The musician who is inclined towards a Brian-Wilson syndrome is in danger of fading into oblivion from competitive nerve issues from the sheer musicality of Jon Anderson’s OPEN.
At timeline 0:00 one could easily mistake the little ‘ping’ sound for a triangle but given the mind-set OPEN is fashioned upon, you can safely put it down to a temple cymbal. At the chime, the unconscious as if under hypnosis, serves up a memory that isn’t even recorded nor tucked away in the recall compatibility of the frontal lobe. Simultaneously taken up by the suspense of the trill in the violin section, stabbed only intermittently by the pizzicato of the cellos. Oboes follow suit unveiling picturesque moors and meadows. One of the longest meanderings in a suspended root since the intro to a Rogers-Hammerstein soundtrack.
To the accomplished musician, receptors which activate specific circuits into accessing the untapped 80% of brain cells seem to get fully fired up. The promise of something brilliant unfolding?
But to the musician with psychological issues one of three options are at disposal;
• Engage the harmless, "Oh, I'm jealous … !" and stay your ground in that circumference.
• Engage the harmless, "Oh, I'm jealous … !" and stay your ground in that circumference.
• Step into purgatory with the Brian-Wilson manic depressive dilemma and deal with your demons the next 18 years.
• Personification of the left hand path into King Nebuchadnezzar’s boanthropy.
Somehow, nestling in a cozy tuft of grass instead of chewing it seems the better bet in easing the musician into the OPEN realm.
As opposed to not engaging the repeat-all button in Fly From Here, the harsh but delectable mistress in OPEN demands a no-holds-barred demeanor, “Push to play me again."
New Beginning
Anderson may appear to have pulled a paradigm shift in regard to his former band’s direction in Fly From Here. In truth, it is they who have taken the leap, alas, where we are now required to circumnavigate their puréed persons. Jon is YES. YES is Jon ... and Billy James nails it with, "Jon's YES!"
Let's try removing Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull, shall we?
And all the wise men would still not know how it feels ...
With acute respiratory failure at hand … and complete rest for a period of six months ordered by the doctor, Jon Anderson was compelled to be cocooned.
“When I got really ill in 2008, we were gonna go on tour, but then I got very sick and nearly died a couple o’ times … … … they didn’t keep in touch which was pretty sad in many ways y’know, you tend to think, well … … … I thought we were all friends, but … y’know … we were sort of partners that’s what we were … … … so they got somebody to sing like me … and look a little bit like me … when I was thirty … which is what they wanted to do … what’cha gonna do, you can’t do much about it.”
Despite their unscrupulous behaviour towards him, you could tell by Anderson's mannerism: pauses in sentences and preoccupation that followed and devoid of acrimonious remarks, he still sorely misses his brothers in YES.
Being in a chrysalis state for that duration, his time for transformation was inevitable … a new beginning.
OPEN gushes forth like a living thing. Not the natural-selection-I'll-be-a-monkey's-uncle-over-time-type living thing ... but living water. We witness the return of the three-winged seraph. The consistency of its flutter resonates once again.
In Flight
OPEN fans out farther than any of YES' works, past, present (or future? ... talk to me Jon)
Stefan Podell's imagination falls nothing short of brilliant! One is instantly transported to the adventurous flights on board the Moorglade Mover.
For a little over a minute at the start of OPEN Stefan steers the craft through clouds and mists of a suspended root with poor visibility. At timeline 1:10 they clear up on a major note and a burst of a rhythm of cellos form a bass line of notes reminiscent to the root of the Indian raga scales utilized by George Harrison in the first ever raga-rock number “Within You Without You” (Sgt. Peppers’ Lonely hearts Club Band, circa 1967)
Cellos, cymbal crashes, horns, reeds and strings then dive into respite, 2:06 … shades of exoticism …
Just 2 minutes into the journey and we already have a peek into the influences that Jon Anderson and Stefan Podell have drawn from. Glissando runs across harp and piano and with cymbals rising to a crescendo the seraphim breaks at 2:28 into the all too familiar helium laced three-part harmony which are all Anderson’s of course, “Forever taken to the place of understanding … “
Janee Anderson was credited for the ‘angel voices’ in this album. The second verse showcases her haunting and angelic counterpoint vocals, with Jon singing in unison, almost simulating a delay effect … Remember first to know you’re spoken forever …
4:00 nylon guts and wind chimes …
4:06 temple gong is banged, craft picks up altitude and the sun is calling …
The similar arrangement of the a cappella section in The Beatles’ Good Day Sunshineseem to be employed in the repeat of this verse, 4:44 … Sun is calling … sun it sings you … sun it shines … [Jon Anderson giving tribute to The Beatles]
As if in Ranyart's seat with yoke firmly in hand Stefan pitches and rolls four movements across a classical music firmament. At times, analogous to the occasional turbulence caused by air pockets lodged like landmines across the skies of Tallowcross en route to thePromised Land.
OPEN brims with cinematic motifs inherent in overtures and intermissions of musicals and biblical epics of yore.
7:16 Anderson arranges a delightful vocal ping pong in … reach … fast … tall … song … talking out … clear sound. Background vocals which ricochet in harmony simulate the delay effect. These are one of the many facets which make up the gem in Jon Anderson’s OPEN.
From 8:01 − 8:12, Stefan himself seems to sweep you across soundscapes of the Gardens of Geda with a 'wicked' edge-of-the-seat bass line toggling between drag, lift and stall in accordance to Anderson's vocal and counterpoint interventions.
Hybrid
The triple time frenetic burst of the lead guitar solo, timeline 8:29 - 8:38, could be mistaken for a Steve Howe lick given the tone of guitar and its juxtaposition against Anderson's helium textures. Oddly, it is also reminiscent of Trevor Rabin’s technique.
While Howe's fingering are inclined to hammer-ons & pull-offs to get him from one destination of the fretboard to another (Gates Of Delirium) Rabin moves with engineered precision, accuracy and speed of the up/down movement of his customized plectrum, sounding even the 'cut' and 'bite' on each note and string, regardless of duration from one point to another (Shoot High, Aim Low)
Consciously or otherwise, Anderson has orchestrated the lick to resonate with a pleasant hybrid of the Howe tone and the Rabin velocity ... which is in fact, all that of 18 year old only, Zach Page.
A serious contender for Steve Howe?
Time will tell if Page is going to be put on his mettle over the next 30 years for a body of work of progressive rock compositions, innovative riffs and trail blazing licks.
The only disappointment in the electric guitar in OPEN is in the inconsistency of its volume. Not a fault of Page but the mixing engineer. The eight measure frenetic guitar run at 8:29 is buried in the mix whereas the repeat of the lick at 9:31 jumps out considerably, seeming to suggest the human fallibility of a manually operated fader than an automated one.
Eye of the Hurricane
Timeline 10:44 and we come to the eye of the hurricane. Stab of the keys are taken up by the trill of violins at the start of this journey. Creeping in again as they lay the base for that singular viola, 11:11, to mark the sadness of deception within the eye.
Tinker of piano and flutes in harmony are taken up by a familiar meandering cello from within you … and without you. Leaving a trail of incriminating clues to conclude that eventhe string players are freaks of a psychedelic nature?
Cello then segues into a somber alternate tuned classical guitar, still very much in the calm before the second wind.
This juncture of the musical journey may come across as the favourite part to most listeners simply because, after 10 minutes of a steady pound, be it from an orchestra or a thrash metal outfit, without realizing it, the human auditory mechanism although incredibly tolerant of different levels of abuse, will cause a temporary threshold shift known as Ear Fatigue.
When the quietness of peace in the light of a stormy journey is laced with the intimacy of a meditative eight chord cyclic run of a somber classical guitar and the close proximity of Jon Anderson’s voice, it is reason enough to feel why.
But its effect is only psychological, while opinion, subjective.
Seven ascending notes on a harp and a plucked G sus and Anderson's voice climbs with the beautiful string accompaniment of Alexandra Cutler-Fetkewic, Jon Fink and Susan Lerner.
Make me … to make me … to know … to remember that …
Formulaic or Organic?
The compositional technique of Stefan Podell, may have been formulaic but inferences drawn point in the direction of an organic one that could have been influenced, nudged and steered by the very mood and emotion of each unplugged section of OPEN on Anderson’s demo tape ... or, directed by Anderson himself.
And perhaps, at times, going the other way ...
[Stefan, furiously scribbles pending ideas, fragments of music and orchestral hooks to make up miniature symphonies set by the various tones of Anderson’s description.
He then comes up with additional musical phrases of melody lines which fires Jon up causing his bronchioles to close. Hyperventilating in and out of the mask for the nebulizer, adrenalin kicks, alveolia allows oxygen and Anderson sings the words as they begin to form and settle snugly into the notations of Stefan’s new tune …
“REACH … FAST … TALL … SONG …
TALKING OUT … CLEAR SOUND …
Stefan, whilst in the fervour of jotting down the newly spun words, Anderson lifts the mask again and like a cherub breaks out the counterpoint vocals,
“OVER THE STORIES OF TIME …
OVER THE STORIES OF TIME …“
Stefan, fumbles as he discovers he’s out of ink, “You go too fast … you go too fast!”
He puts the separate miniature symphonies together like a mosaic … eventually accomplishing four seamless movements of 21 minutes]
Unlike Paul McCartney’s Ocean’s Kingdom, a 56-minute-four-movement classical piece divided in four parts by 12 second pauses, Anderson and Podell keep the four movements in OPEN segued seamlessly without a pause. Concise and urgent as in the Single/EP-release context.
Fire and Ice
Whilst YES2011 are now relegated to YES wannabes, Anderson, fully aware of the diehards' demands of that 10.0 model, has met with them in OPEN.
The accolades showered upon Stefan Podell's 21 minute opus could have been attributed to the members of YES as well. They would, in a sense, be basking in its glory ... but more's the pity two camps were created unbeknownst to Anderson whilst he was in the toilet. Last wiggle, "Cor blimey!" dick in the wind, "I’m given the boot?”
The musicality of Anderson's OPEN in the light of the letdown by his fellow band mates would need all the fire it can muster to be on par with the edge that is inherent in all of YES' works. That primal ingredient to beckon the curious attention-deficit onlooker who knows nothing of YES nor Anderson for that matter.
“Some of this, and all of that’s the only way to skin the cat.” said Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull
And the only way to fire up an orchestral piece in a non-compositional-all-beckoning manner is to turn up the heat of the drums. But in keeping with the conservative trend of ‘orchestral piece’ the conductor, inadvertently played down the parts of the drums musically and mix-wise. As heard/felt in every other similar work where drum parts are written for.
Even kick parts are missing, or buried which could have further accentuated and consolidated the sawed strokes of the cellos, 1:09 - The deft brush work of Junca or Scott seem snowed under while essential signatures which are an integral part of urgencies portrayed in Stefan’s ‘wicked’ bass line, 8:09 − 8:11 aren’t even written in.
Perhaps the missing piece of the puzzle in the Anderson-Podell context is the explosive thunder in the Sean Beeson factor …
Alternatively, replacing a considerable amount of Zach Miller’s piano parts with distorted, harmonized guitar could have induced the badly needed spice. Even the classical guitar parts from 15:51 sprinkled all over “Sun it Sings” seem a little overkill when it could have sounded better with Brian-May runs á la Death On Two Legs.
Which is why Trevor Rabin was the perfect villain in the Jon Anderson narrative. Trevor and Co [i.e., with Rick Wakeman, of course] together were the formidable alloy which made Jon whole.
But the fat ones became Buggles … the thin one, got buggered.
When the equipoise of the weighing scales were tipped, the balance of the ferocity of the band and frailty of Anderson - the forging with fire and ice - underwent a severe stress corrosion cracking. YES, who lay shrouded in the mystery of steel are now unveiled with their alloy in zero ductility and malleability.
Water dripping, falling ... freezing ... melting. Refreeze!
Over time ... the icicle grows again. But without the fire of its forging partner ... let us not kid ourselves.
OPEN is a beautiful and charming piece full of the coolness of Jon. The melding of his harmony bursts and the orchestral stabs are like icicles on a tree. Turning up the heat in this opus would have given the good guy his necessary nemesis.
Job 1:7-12 …
The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”
Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.''
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”
Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.
Is this even an album review?
Revolt?
The musical sparkle in climatic endings of good-over-evil epics is the general atmosphere here, 15:51. Bursting with all the musical grandeur in the D major mind-set one is conditioned with the musical terrain of that route and that route only.
But a mood shift with a switch to the B major refrain at 17:00 puzzles the listener.
Mystery clears up as one recognizes the clues that Stefan had already left in its overture. It’s as if he had had the D major route written in as decoy for farther down the journey in an attempt to throw his assailants off the scent.
Writing a trill for electric guitar as segue into the B major refrain Stefan creates the tension required in the directional change. There is an urgency whereby even the tempo of the orchestra is speeded up! It was either intentional on Stefan’s part [to speed it up] … or, an adrenalin rush which caused the upswing of his conducting baton to fly a little more furiously. Orchestra takes its cue.
Grim’s choice is the latter.
Can one blame Stefan? This is his moment to rock out. Listen to the pulse of the cellos. A driving and dramatic series of sawed notes. Needless to say, no ominous chords were interjected, laced or otherwise to indicate the reappearance of his assailants … not yet at least.
Instead we have an angelic Mardi Gras of vocal throbs, counterpoint melodies, horn urgencies, crash of orchestral cymbals and the furious brush strokes now transformed into stick stabs increasing the bubble of the boil as we are led by Qoquaq to the threshold of the Promised Land ... [We just, might be able to pick out Billy James’ background vocals from this point on, 19:42]
"KNOWING THAT IN TRUTH OUR FREEDOM SINGS ... [know that ... know that]"
Circuits are fully activated by this 21-minute-four-movement epic adventure and the progger feels an unadulterated NZT-48's rush of blood to the head: cerebral yet primal.
After what sounded like ‘Sunhillow exploding into millions of teardrops’ the celebration ends as if sucked into a vortex. Followed immediately, by a slightly ominous grating sound, in reverse-tape, 20:32 ... twice …
Shift in the shadows? Movement on the grassy knoll?
Temple cymbal chimes once again, as if to quell all rumors of a revolt,
“It’s nothing … probably the wind.”
All is not lost for the fire element in OPEN. For one can always be in full anticipation of it in the concluding chapters of this opus taking into consideration that this is the Single/EP.
Two more tracks of 20 minutes each and we’ll have the OPEN Trilogy grazing over a full album. In a manner of speaking OPEN should evolve into ‘Return to Olias’. [The sequel to Anderson’s ‘Olias of Sunhillow’ circa, 1976].
• If the current four-movement OPEN is labeled The Exodus, where Qoquaq, the leader who unites the four tribes of Sunhillow, completes the exodus ...
• ... it would make sense to move the narrative along to the next 20 minute piece, Promised Land and The Angelic Revolt, where a pandoraic element is unleashed ... [more dramatic orchestration and fiery drums]
• ... to eventually conclude with the final, New Heaven, New Earth, New Beginning … all of which, hypothetically speaking, that is.
The Audience is Listening
The bar has been raised. OPEN reaches farther and deeper than all of the 47 minutes of Buggles' attempts in Fly From Here. One can only imagine the horizons Jon Anderson would reach out for, or take us to in its conclusion.
Over the last 40 years Anderson has worn out the rabbits’ path sending us down to depths of fantasy and hurtling us out through firmaments of mystery. He has led us in dance to the rhythm of joy and fear. Now he flies us through open doors of love and freedom. Going by what Anderson has given us through the YES years and his solo projects, nothing less of this 21 minute opus is expected from its concluding journey. The audience is listening.
Epilogue and the Bum Note
Cases of people going over the deep end with competitive nerve issues are real. As in Brian Wilson’s case at the release of The Beatle’s Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, circa 1967, which very sadly, sent him into depression for the next 18 years from the sheer overwhelming, compositional and engineering breakthrough of John Lennon and Paul McCartney and to a large extent, George Harrison for his then one of a kind exotic raga-rock, “Within You, Without You”.
And just as King Nebuchadnezzar’s psychological disorder in believing himself to be a bovine, returned to the throne after 7 years of his grass eating escapades, so did Brian Wilson after 18 years of depression, to the stage (Live Aid, 1985)
The orchestration alone in Jon Anderson’s OPEN can be intimidating to the members of the new Buggles for it took the collaboration of all five of them to come up with the insipid Fly From Here … and yet, only one Anderson envisioned the 21 minute opus.
Save for the flat mix of the drums, the absence of distortion guitar and the flautist’s bum D note* at 17:21 ... [Yes, you ‘eard! A bum note! Hannibal would have had that flautist for dinner!] ... it is quite the perfect triumph!
*Interfering, overlapping, extra syllable of a note … help me out here, Billy, you're the Berklee College grad :-))
Afterword: Grim's appraisal of OPEN is an extended 'corollary' of the earlier appraised Fly From Here.
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Hey Tommy, you might be interested to know that Stefan and I are great friends and are even working together on something that has some thunderous drums in it :-)!
ReplyDeleteHave you gone Black? The precursor is a hint and I await the impending blow with a bottle of Jack. Seriously Sean, your brief strain is ethnically neutral and forns well with good whiskey. I linked Grim to your comment and I am awaiting to hear what he has to say. Beers.
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