Olias of Sunhillow is the 1976 solo recording by
Yes' vocalist and lyricist Jon Anderson. Inspired by
the artwork of Yes' own album Fragile, Olias
tells the story of three celestial travelers -- Olias,
Ranyart, and Qoquaq -- who rescue four tribes from a dying
world. It was written, played, and recorded solely by
Anderson during the short hiatus between Relayer
and Going for the One. It competes with
Chris Squire's Fish Out of Water as the best of
the solo recordings by Yes members to come out during that
time, and is arguably the most timeless of them.
The background
Jon Anderson had long been interested in science fiction and
fantasy, as were many of the people of his generation, and
occasionally the imagery and language of these literary
genres crept into his lyrics. For example,
the song title "Starship Trooper" was taken from
Robert Heinlein's story Starship Troopers, even
though the song itself has nothing to do with Heinlein's
story. And Anderson's lyrics often showed an undercurrent
of otherworldliness, perhaps even an obsession with myths
and archetypes culminating in the 1973 album
Tales from Topographic Oceans. But the inspiration for Olias of Sunhillow was more personal.
Beginning with 1972's Fragile, Yes established a
long and fruitful relationship with illustrator and designer
Roger Dean and his brother Martyn. Roger
designed the now-famous Yes logo, and painted several album
covers for the band over the years. Dean had some freedom
with album cover designs, and painted a shattering world on
the back cover of Fragile, with an ethereal sailing
ship flying by. Anderson was struck by the image Dean had
created, and began crafting his own story around it. Thus
was born Olias of Sunhillow.
The story
Three riders from unknown places, beings of light, energy,
and music, meet in the Garden of Geda. The three join to
save the four tribes of Sunhillow -- Nagrumum,
Asatranius, Oractanium, and Nordranius
-- from the imminent destruction of Sunhillow, the
fracturing world. Olias sings a song that coaxes the very
trees of the Earth from the ground to form the timbers of
the astral sailing ship Moorglade. The four tribes
are led to a new home by Qoquaq, and in the end Olias and
the other two die and achieve transcendence through song, leading humanity to salvation by their self-sacrifice.
The story of transcendent beings saving the human race is
an old, old, old one, told in
a thousand different ways.
Nearly every religion on Earth has elements of this story --
human beings seem to be hard-wired for it. The
only difference here is that it's solely a creation of
Anderson's imagination. So though the story is fantasy,
Anderson's getting at something more profound here. But
that's what all good stories do, don't they?
The music
The album is remarkable for several reasons. Though much of
the music of the 1970's suffers from the recording and
instrumental technology of the time, Olias sounds the
least dated of all the material put out by Yes or Yes
members in that decade. Perhaps it is because Anderson is
more interested in creating soundscapes than songs.
While the arrangements are quite dense at times, the mixture
of electronic and analog instrumentation is well-balanced,
and neither dominates. Indeed, the parts played by the
different instruments are often quite simple (because
Anderson recorded them all himself), and the complexity of
the songs comes mainly from their composition and
arrangement. There is some debate as to whether Anderson
truly played all of the instruments himself, but there's
little instrumental showmanship on the record, and I don't
find Anderson's claim far-fetched at all. Even the
percussion and drumming is very simple -- often little more
than a beating bass drum or handclaps -- so once Anderson
had the songs arranged, the recording would've been
straightforward.
However, it is clear that Anderson was very
heavily influenced by the growing new age, ambient and
electronic music movements of the 1970's. This was around
the time when Anderson began his long-time collaboration
Vangelis, and Olias obviously draws much from Jon's
interaction with him. In fact, Vangelis was accused of
performing on the record by his then record company RCA
while still under contract, who had to be convinced
by Vangelis and Anderson that he didn't participate. It
must've been a hard-sell, because one could easily listen to
Anderson's Olias and Vangelis' 1975 record
Heaven and Hell (on which Anderson sang one song),
and believe they were written and recorded by the same
people.
The album
The album has eight songs, all composed and performed by Jon
Anderson, telling the story from the meeting of the three
riders, to the plight of the tribes of Sunhillow, to the
building of the Moorglade and the rescue of the
tribes and the final transcendence of Olias and his
companions. It was recorded in Jon Anderson's 24-track home
studio in four months, using a variety of keyboards, early
synthesizers (like the Moog), and other forms of analog
instruments including string and percussion instruments from
around the world.
The tracks are:
- Ocean Song (3:05)
- Meeting (Garden of Geda) / Sound Out the Galleon (3:34)
- Dance of Ranyart / Olias (To Build the Moorglade) (4:19)
- Qoquaq Ën Transic / Naon / Transic Tö (7:08)
- Flight of the Moorglade (3:24)
- Solid Space (5:21)
- Moon Ra / Chords / Song of Search (12:48)
- To the Runner (4:29)
The album is is very well-crafted, and though the individual
instrumental performances are simple, they combine into a
beautifully orchestrated whole. The highlights of the album
are Naon, Solid Space and Moon Ra, all of which are
very primal rhythmic chants with simple melodies; despite their simplicity, they
reach incredibly emotional and energetic heights, and are
about as close to ecstasy as the album gets.
The album clearly won't appeal to everyone. Anderson's
sense of wonder and unselfconscious exploration of spiritual
themes on this record may seem pretentious to those not used
to him. It's a New Age record, plain and simple, even
though that genre of music really hadn't been defined at
that time. If you're a fan of Yes, it's worth a listen just
to see how Jon Anderson expresses his personal vision outside of the structure of the band.
Though I am quite biased, I highly recommend this for fans
of New Age, ambient, or electronic music, as well as for
fans of Yes and progressive rock. At worst, it's good
background music. At best, it's an engaging and beautiful
bit of storytelling. Though Anderson has put out many solo
records over the years since Olias, this is by far
the best.
If you like fantasy, you'll probably like this record. If
you like Yes, you'll probably like this record. And if you
like Jon Anderson, you'll love this record.
Jon Anderson
Olias of Sunhillow
Atlantic Records, July 1976
Rereleased by Warner/WEA International, April 1996
CD catalog number: Atlantic 7567-80273-2
Trivia: the symbol on the back cover of the album, set of nested regular polygons, may look familiar to you. Aside
from being a potential Pythagorean (or Keplerian) sigil, it
reappeared in slightly modified form on the cover of Yes'
2001 record Magnification.