Yes: Yes - 1969

 

This most interesting first offering from Yes is a bit like the debut albums from The Grateful Dead and Ten Years After - really different from the groups' later work. The difference here, between 1968 and, say, 1971, is seismic. This album is a psychedelic, hippy delight with hardly anything "prog" about it. It had a freaky-style cover too. No Roger Dean proggy stuff as yet. 

Beyond And Before is beautifully and melodically psychedelic - full of crazy fuzzy riffs and airy, hippy-influenced vocals. It is a little gem of the genre, nothing really like subsequent Yes material. I See You is lively and almost jazzy, with a great, catchy bass line and lots of Crosby, Stills & Nash-style vocal harmonies - not surprising as it was a Byrds cover. I really love this one. Listen to that jazzy cymbals and bass interplay about four minutes in and the heavy guitar-drum part that follows it - totally infectious. 

Yesterday And Today is an airy, laid-back acoustic number while Looking Around is an excellent, upbeat piece of 1968 organ-driven fare. The war-themed Harold Land is very Pink Floyd-esque and Every Little Thing is madly psychedelic, featuring some prototype almost solo drumming from Bill Bruford. What an underrated drummer he was. The song was unrecognisable as a Beatles cover (from Beatles For Sale). 

Sweetness is also dreamily hippy in its ambience, despite it being quite rockingly robust. You know what I mean if you hear it. Once again, it has a real late sixties appeal to it. Survival has shed loads of wah-wah style freaky guitar and all sorts of improvisations. It is here that we begin to detect the first signs of what would become typical prog rock changes of tempo and mood within the same song. 

The blissed-out feeling continues into the bonus track, another very hippy-ish number in Stephen Stills' Everydays, with the organ and bass to the fore. Once again, there are jazzy breaks amongst the ethereal experimentation. Some fine proggy guitar, cymbals and drum interplay can be found near the end. Maybe prog rock started here - check out that wild organ solo and the soaring guitar for evidence. Incidentally, the track comes to an abrupt end. This is definitely an intriguing album and although it is nothing like later Yes, it shows that they were a talented bunch prepared to innovate and push musical boundaries.


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