It is at least 40 years since I last heard any of this LP and I can't say I was particularly looking forward to sitting through it again, but as George Michael requested, listen without prejudice !
I bought this album after hearing a couple of the songs on Nicky Horne's 70's late night radio show on Capital Radio. I had no idea who Jon Anderson was, so it was a bit of a surprise to later learn he was the singer in Yes.
A few months later Punk Rock exploded into the country's consciousness and I started listening to The Clash, The Stranglers, The Jam, The Sex Pistols etc, which are a bit of a contrast to the cosmic witterings of Jon Anderson !
Despite being untrained, Anderson plays all the instruments on the album, not that you would guess that. As a result there are no guitar solos, keyboard wizardary or pulsating bass lines but a lot of synthesized music, and an effective use of his voice. A lot of the instrumental pieces are reminiscent of Vangelis, who gets a thank you on the sleeve, and who later collaborated with Anderson, but his participation on this work is strenuously denied. In some ways Olias is also similiar to Mike Oldfield's multi-instrumentation offerings.
This is a concept album, and the story is told on the inside cover. There is some nice looking art work but the story is hard to fathom. Thankfully, the tale of 4 tribes fleeing an dying planet on a Noah's Ark ship is now clearly explained on Wikipedia.
Perhaps unfortunately I was able to find the full album on YouTube, but I noticed that the most popular track had only 40K hits, with most around 10-12K, and one less than 500 hits. One slightly annoying feature of listening on YouTube are the gaps between the tracks, whereas on the record they seemlessly flow.
For me the highlights of this LP are the two pleasant songs "Sound Out The Galleon" and "Flight Of The Moorglade" which have a similarity to the later Yes hit "Wonderous Stories". The early instrumentals on side one ( "Ocean Song" & "Dance of Ranyart" ) are pleasant and inoffensive, being possible music for shampoo adverts, but the album then drifts into a mixture of Buddist, Hindi and perhaps even Japanese influences. "Olias ( To Build The Moorglade )" sounds like a Yes on a bad day.
Listening to side two, I was beginning to get bored with the mystical musings, apart from the gentle spanish style guitar at the end of "Chords", but the finale "To The Runner" is another airy, joyous song finishing with a haunting synthesizer close, similiar to "Shine On You Crazy Diamond Part 9" which ends Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.
In summary, Olias of Sunhillow has its moments and is a showcase for Jon Anderson's vocal talents, but could do with a better balance between the simple acoustic songs and the spaced out, repetitive instrumental experimentation. However, it is a product of its time, with its mumbo jumbo lyrics, a new age hippy vibe and its creator probably being out of his head on dope most of the time, but it is fine if you like that sort of thing.
And amazingly, I have written all of this without saying it's pretensious crap !
Track Listing :
1. Ocean Song
2. Meeting (Garden Of Geda)
3. Sound Out The Galleon
4. Dance Of Ranyart
5. Olias (To Build The Moorglade)
6. Qoquaq ën Transic
7. Naon
8. Transic Tö
9. Flight Of The Moorglade
10. Solid Space
11. Moon Ra
12. Chords
13. Song Of Search
14. To The Runner
Released 1976
UK Chart Position : 8
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