Yes - Tales From Topographic Oceans

Yes had already hit the Prog scene with successful albums with The Yes Album, Fragile, and Close to the Edge. It wasn't until 1974 that they were about to go into Concept Mode. During this time period, Bill Bruford left Yes to join up with Robert Fripp and King Crimson. Session drummer for the Plastic Ono Band with John Lennon's Alan White joined the group to work with Yes and their controversial concept album based on the book by Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, Tales from Topographic Oceans. This album is one of these concepts that will send you to the land of the Ritual aquarium seas of ambition.

This shows Yes in their prime within the spell of Avant-Garde electronic noises from Rick Wakeman. They wanted to take the boundaries of Progressive Rock a little furter and top it off with some strange Atmospheric sounds that would take you to different worlds. I was kind of suprise of hearing this album from start to finish becasue for me, 20-miunte epics on four tracks is a huge challenge because no one dared to release a 2-LP set with strange and bizarre epics and going on tour to play the whole album in its entireity. From the tales of the dawn of light ( The Revealing Science of God ), The Fruit of Life ( The Remembering [High The Memory] ), and bizarre languages with crazy effects of the Moog ( The Ancients [Giant Under the Sun], Ritual [Sous Sommes Du Soleil] ), They really show a level of madness.

For Rick Wakeman, he felt it was too spacey and felt it was like crap. During the Topographic Oceans tour, Rick would eat a lemon curry during the performance and after the tour, he left Yes to join up the Royal Festival Hall to make one of the most successful live albums of a Rock musical with a Symphony Orchestra of Journey To The Centre of the Earth. After he left, Yes turned to swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz who was part of a trio called Refugee that featured some of the members of The Nice and released Relayer. Tales is one of the highlights in Yes's career and reaching up to the heavens. 20-minute epics to make you go into the mystical caves? Why Not?!