On 11 Jul 97  14:53:39, waiting for 22, David Marheine said:
 DM> @MSGID: 1:154/750.0 33c6761d
 DM> -!- Sez Kenneth Newman to David Marheine ---
 
 DM> Geez, I know you don't like Lee Jackson's voice, but I think 
 DM> _Refugee_ is the best thing Pat Moraz ever recorded. 
 
 KN> Have you heard _Relayer_ or some of Moraz's duet albums 
 KN> with Bruford? Moraz's playing on _Refugee_ is good, as 
 KN> you say, but in conception and execution the album is 
 KN> hochkaese, high cheese. 
 DM> I haven't herd the dewettes, but I did listen to _Relayer_ and
 DM> _Close To The Edge_ last week.  I've decided my main beef with
 DM> _CTTE_ is the sonics.  Otherwise it's a pretty good album.  If
 DM> the CD is better sounding than the LP, I can understand people
 DM> being nuts about it.  _Relayer_, on the other hand, *sounds* better,
 DM> but I've never warmed up to the material.  Maybe I haven't listened
 DM> to it often enough, but large quantities of it just sound like
 DM> unrelated riff overdubs.  I mean, nobody seems to be listening
 DM> to what anybody else is playing.  In lotsa sections it seems that
 DM> any given part could be time-shifted anywhere from a quarter note
 DM> to 8 bars and you couldn't tell the difference.  Howe in particular
 DM> seems out in left field proudly noodling anti-guitar riffs whilst
 DM> ignoring the bass and drums.  This is also my impression of parts
 DM> of _CTTE_, BTW.  Too few of the "themes" seem to coalesce into
 DM> melodies or statements by the band as a whole.  Perhaps a punchy
 DM> remix/remaster would help a lot.  I guess I better haul out
 DM> that double disc _Yesstory_ compilation this weekend and do some
 DM> comparison listening.  To be honest, the biggest problem here is
 DM> that I compare each of these to _Fragile_ and _The Yes Album_,
 DM> not to the whole of ProgRock or even music in general.  In a wider
 DM> context, there's much to recommend each of these.  In the big world
 DM> of both kinds of music, these are certainly one of them.  I think.
I think that one of the beauties of CTTE and Relayer is how they can
play so many different things and still sound like the same song.
Which isn't to say that it doesn't take time to get used to.  If you
really want to hear a song that sounds like lots of different sounds
spliced together try "A Plague of Lighthousekeppers" from Van der
Graaf Generator (album _Pawn Hearts_).  There are parts of it that
really sound that way.  And it doesn't sound half as good as the Yes
stuff, IMHO.
        Frank
... No one can hear when you're Screaming in Digital!
--- Blue Wave v2.12 [NR]
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