After six phenomenally prolific years of recording and touring that produced both great work and multiple lineup changes, at the end of 1974, progressive rock quintet Yes decided to take a year\u2019s break from recording that would allow all five members of the band to work on solo albums in between touring commitments.<\/p>\n
Of the solo albums that were created that year, Chris Squire\u2019s Fish Out Of Water<\/i> is almost universally regarded as both the best and the one that sounds the most like Yes.\u00a0 And why wouldn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Squire, whose distinctive bass playing and harmony vocals anchor the band\u2019s sound, chose to make his debut solo album with founding Yes drummer Bill Bruford and then-current Yes keyboardist Patrick Moraz as the other principal players, along with childhood pal and fellow choir singer Andrew Jackman handling orchestrations and piano.\u00a0 Squire himself plays bass and occasional guitar and sings all of the lead and most of the harmony vocals.<\/p>\n
Right off the bat you\u2019re on familiar territory as \u201cHold Out Your Hand\u201d powers into focus, a ringing rocker whose deft mixture of muscle and melody reminds of \u201cParallels\u201d and other Squire compositions with Yes.\u00a0 In addition to its core propulsiveness, it features a strong chorus hook and wonderful church organ work from Squire\u2019s childhood mentor Barry Rose, suborganist at St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral in London.\u00a0 Squire\u2019s infamous \u201clead bass\u201d is also well in evidence, an unusual approach that\u2019s uniquely suited to this sort of driving, airy number.\u00a0 Toward the end of the song, Jackman\u2019s orchestral arrangements begin to fill out the already outsized sound, embellishing the piano-bass-drums foundation. <\/p>\n
The sudden transition from \u201cHold Out Your Hand\u201d to the softer, gentler \u201cYou By My Side\u201d only accents the Beatlesque feel of the latter track.\u00a0 The rich, warm tones of \u201cYou By My Side\u201d are also \u2013 as Squire reveals in the audio commentary of the 2007 deluxe CD\/DVD edition of this album \u2013 strongly influenced by Graham Nash.\u00a0 This gentle tune also features the flute work of Jimmy Hasting and exceptional choral vocals, with the harmonies and background vocals layering and building the verses to the choruses.\u00a0 At the end the brass comes in and Squire begins conducting the orchestra with his bass guitar \u2013 something you can both hear clearly on the audio track and watch for yourself on the promo video included on the deluxe edition DVD.<\/p>\n
\u201cSilently Falling\u201d again features woodwinds on the orchestral opening and Squire booming the bottom end with fuzz bass.\u00a0 Three and a half minutes in it falls into a proggy \u201cbeautiful chaos\u201d section where everyone\u2019s playing off each other like billiard balls.\u00a0 Eventually Moraz rips out a tremendous Hammond solo, driving the others on as piano, bass and drums explode into an almost psychedelic jam that builds and builds for several minutes until they\u2019re absolutely wailing — at which point they stop on a dime and reprise the quiet beginning, with Squire adding the only noticeable guitar work on the album, a couple of brief warning blasts followed by a steady, rather distorted fadeout solo with a Neil Young vibe.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great \u00a0eleven and a half minute mini-opus, and a fittingly grand close to what was side one on the vinyl original.<\/p>\n
\u201cLucky Seven\u201d starts out feeling like a Steely Dan song with Jackman playing a snappy Fender Rhodes melody, with bass and drums tight underneath and Mel Collins\u2019 sax layering an elegant figure on top.\u00a0 As it progresses, Squire\u2019s bass pushes out front more and more as he and Jackman bring in a variety of little twists and variations on the melody.\u00a0 There are also classic moments of \u201clead bass\u201d in \u201cLucky Seven,\u201d where everyone else is repeating hypnotic grooves while Squire is jumping around all over the place and taking most of the solos \u2013 at least, other than the brilliant Collins sax excursion just before the wind-down ending.\u00a0 Squire\u2019s singing here is a little rawer and throatier than you might be used to; as a harmony vocalist in Yes he\u2019s often la-la-ing in the background, but here he\u2019s singing lead and letting a little grit into his vocals.<\/p>\n
The closing fifth track \u201cSafe (Canon Song)\u201d is a multi-part fifteen-minute suite, with a rather cinematic opening, all piano and horns and choral vocals.\u00a0 Three minutes in, Squire solos a little riff that becomes the backbone for the remainder of the song.\u00a0 After one more vocal section, the song essentially transitions into a series of duets between Squire and the orchestra, where he plays off it in bits and pieces, one instrument or section at a time, lending the whole exercise an Alan Parsons feel.\u00a0 It\u2019s unique and evocative, of course, hearing a bass guitar duet with an orchestra for ten minutes, and it does have a steady build with symphonic advances and fallbacks — but realistically, it goes on several minutes longer than it actually remains interesting.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s widely acknowledged that Andrew Jackman was one of the driving forces behind this, Squire\u2019s only completed solo album to date.\u00a0 Clearly the orchestrations play a huge role in the album\u2019s impact, as the lack of guitar and emphasis on keyboards and choral vocals keep the music very airy throughout.\u00a0 As Squire notes on the bonus DVD accompanying the deluxe edition, \u201cWe discussed that we basically wanted to make a pretty orchestral, big-sounding album and Andrew was very keen on that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
He was indeed, and the end result was an album full of unique and beautiful work, truly symphonic prog with heavy bass accents as only Squire could deliver them. \u00a0Count me among the multitudes who regard Fish Out Of Water<\/i> as the very best of the multitude of solo albums issued by various members of Yes over the years.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":30281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8556],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41935","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chris-squire","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41935"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}