A remix of an album that\u2019s both a \u201970s classic and contains some of my favorite individual songs of the entire decade? An album that I\u2019ve listened to so many times with such deep affection that it feels like every note and nuance is burned into memory? Visions of George Lucas\u2019 1997 \u201cSpecial Edition\u201d re-releases of the original Star Wars<\/i> trilogy dance in my head. How could this end any way but badly?<\/p>\n
The answer, apparently, if it\u2019s a classic Yes album you\u2019re talking about, is to ask Steven Wilson to do the mixing. The heavy-duty proghead \/ producer \/ maestro behind Porcupine Tree, No-Man, Blackfield and a half dozen or so solo albums has in recent years remixed classic albums by prog royalty like Yes, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull to general acclaim. (There have been holdouts, of course \u2013 put 100 progheads in a room and the only way to prevent a shouting match from breaking out is to turn the music up so loud they can\u2019t hear each other.)<\/p>\n
In any case, given my personal history with and affection for Fragile<\/i> and the rest of the \u201cmain sequence\u201d of classic \u201970s Yes albums, I approached Wilson\u2019s remix with some trepidation\u2014and finished nine tracks later with a grin on my face that wouldn\u2019t quit. (Note: this review is of the recent CD version available as a Japanese import.)<\/p>\n
What Wilson has achieved here is nothing short of remarkable\u2014he has taken one of the milestone albums of the classic prog era and made it better. From the opening notes of \u201cRoundabout,\u201d the difference is evident. Every individual performance sounds like it\u2019s been lovingly scrubbed with a sonic brush\u2014cleaner and clearer and sharper than ever. The real revelation, though, is in the separation and clarity, where it literally sounds, even in plain old stereo with just a decent pair of headphones, like you\u2019re standing in the middle of the studio as Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Rick Wakeman, and Bill Bruford play in a circle around you. <\/p>\n
Core elements of these songs\u2014bits that have been there all along\u2014feel that much more \u201cthere\u201d in these new renderings. Wakeman\u2019s organ solos at the climax on \u201cRoundabout\u201d bounce you right out of your chair. When Squire la-la-las through the bridge of \u201cSouth Side Of The Sky\u201d it sounds like he\u2019s sitting on your left shoulder (ouch). You can see the calluses on Howe\u2019s fingers as he picks each bright note and strums each vibrant chord of \u201cMood For A Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for \u201cHeart Of The Sunrise,\u201d wow. Just wow. If ever a song could benefit from the sort of separation and clarity Wilson brings, it\u2019s this epic hard\/soft, slow\/fast jamfest. As the brawny opening Squire\/White\/Howe section builds, Howe\u2019s jagged ascending\/descending electric riff feels like it enters from somewhere east of Alpha Centauri and doesn\u2019t halt its approach until it\u2019s all the way inside your skull. <\/p>\n
Wilson\u2019s mix also brings out subtleties that weren\u2019t necessarily obvious in the original mixes everyone is accustomed to. Both Anderson\u2019s emotional vocal and Wakeman\u2019s rich keys feel brighter yet on the gentle sections of \u201cHeart Of The Sunrise,\u201d with synth notes I don\u2019t recall from previous mixes having been excavated from the depths to new and welcome prominence. And both Squire\u2019s astonishing bass lines and White\u2019s multiple layers of percussion feel stronger and sharper in \u201cThe Fish (Schindeleria Praematurus).\u201d<\/p>\n
So wipe those bitter memories of Greedo shooting first from your minds; Steven Wilson came not to muck Fragile<\/i> up, but to take everything you already loved about this classic album and dial it up to eleven. You won\u2019t be sorry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5713],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-45783","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-yes","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45783","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=45783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45783"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}