Olias of Sunhillow

Concept

For his solo effort, Anderson wished to present a concept album which told a "semi-science fiction" story inspired by the artwork that Roger Dean had designed and illustrated for Yes's fourth album, Fragile (1971).^[4][5] Dean's first piece of work for the group, the front cover depicts a tiny planet breaking apart and a glider escaping into space, which Anderson adapted into the story with additional inspiration from the novel The Initiation of the World by writer, painter, and mystic Vera Stanley Alder and The Lord of the Rings trilogy by writer J.R.R. Tolkien.^[5] Regarding the story, Anderson has admitted "it's not that well mapped out - there's a vague interpretation of a planet and four tribes being representative of rhythm, scale and bell tones creating sound around scale, and chorale... I just thought of the story as three magicians coming out of space to take these tribes from one planet to another to save them from destruction. It's a very simple story really, it isn't so complicated. I hope it will be taken on a level without people thinking there are any hidden meanings."^[4]

Recording

Since Anderson produced Olias soon after Vangelis had auditioned to be a part of Yes, there has been widespread speculation that Vangelis contributed to the album. Both Vangelis and Anderson have denied that they collaborated on the album. Vangelis has, however, been vocal in his praise of the finished work: ""When the record came out, the people of RCA with whom I am under contract invited me and told me it wasn't very nice to have played on the record, without warning. But that's ever more curious since I haven't played on it and they were convinced of having recognized my sound. I myself was very surprised it had my name on the thank you-list. Maybe I have influenced Jon, I don't know. And it's clear that it's closer to this than you get with Yes. But maybe it's a coincidence. In any case, it's a formidable feat there is such a record when it features like Jon a debutante on keyboards. I believe the record represents more the way he is than what he does with Yes, no offense intended…. Jon Anderson is not an instrumentalist in the old sense of the term and yet he has made, with lots of effort, a marvelous record."^[7]

In various interviews, Anderson has stressed that the album was in part created as a statement of independence and personal skill. Interviewed by Chris Welch of Melody Maker in 1976, he admitted "having thought about doing an album, and wanting to learn about music, that gave me the main push. Many is the time I've talked to the guys in the band about music, and I realised if I was going to learn something about structures and possibilities, I'd have to go away for along time and be taught. Basically, the idea of doing the album was this self-taught approach. Halfway through the album I realised I was learning a lot about my possibilities - and non-possibilities! You just find out where you're at in being able to express yourself. It was an intense period of time."^[4] When interviewed about the album in Team Rock in 2016, Anderson remembered that "I wanted to come out feeling like I had achieved something because (in Yes) I was always relying on other people to create the work. Doing it on my own gave me the chance to create something unique."^[2]

The album represented eight months of physical work, but it took two years from conception to release (even delaying a proposed Yes tour of Japan to enable Anderson to complete the record). Working in a home studio he'd set up in a converted garage in his house at Seer Green, Buckinghamshire, Anderson worked a steady stream of ten-hour days in order to achieve his aims, accompanied only by Yes sound engineer Mike Dunne (who operated the recording desk). Anderson has commented "Mike... was very involved on the engineering and I needed somebody there to help me and get the right sound. When it came to mixing, it was what I wanted to hear. Mike was more than the second man, he was part of the mix."^[4]

Anderson used more than a hundred tracks in putting the album together, overdubbing all of the vocals and instruments himself.^[4] He confessed to Chris Welch that "the album took a lot longer than I anticipated and obviously there were points when I didn't think I was going to finish it, and that I was going to end up a nervous wreck."^[4] In an interview with Best magazine in 1977, he also confessed "I do not claim to be a master of the keyboards or percussions but I find that what I've pulled off attracts me and sounds right. What counts is not the technical ability, but the accuracy of what one does at the moment when it is done, however modest that might be."^[8]

Although previous Yes tours had seen him play passable support guitar and percussion onstage, Anderson drastically improved his musical skills for Olias, becoming a multi-instrumentalist for the album sessions. In 1976, he reminisced to Chris Welch, "at the beginning of the (Yes) American tour (of 1975) I started collecting instruments. I bought a harp after listening to harp music for six months. I just had to have one... I've so much to learn in technique on any instrument. But being able to play a tune was enough. I couldn't say I've mastered the art of playing harp, but I can play a tune on it. In ten years I might be able to play it fully. But the initial step has been taken. I couldn't read any music either - that's another thing I've got to learn. But that's what we've been doing with Yes for so long - remembering things."^[4]

In addition to learning harp, Anderson also taught himself to perform parts on wooden flute, Asian bells, sitars, Moog synthesizer and Turkish saz. He still considered his voice his primary instrument, using multiple overdubs (as he had on Yes' Fragile track "We Have Heaven") and creating impressions of new languages as part of the orchestration process. ("Those words were a solo for my voice. I couldn’t play a solo on an instrument so I used my voice instead. The different language was a vocal exercise. I still do that now. If I don’t have a lyric, I make a sound. On Olias, I sang it and sang it until we created twenty voices and finished up with this tangible energy.")^[2]

The album made the Top 10 in the British album charts (reaching No. 8) and also made the Billboard Top 50. Very little of it has ever been performed live. Although "Ocean Song" was performed by Yes during the band's 1976 "Solo Albums" tour of American (as an ambient show opener), as with the other solo tracks in the initial setlist it was dropped after the first few weeks of touring.^[2]

Artwork

Despite repeated requests from Anderson, Roger Dean was too busy to commit to the album design, so instead the album sleeve features a series of artworks by the artist David Fairbrother Roe, RA (whose other work included graphics for the Isle of Wight Festival, Nazareth – Hair of the Dog, and the Dragonflight novels of Anne McCaffrey).

Reception

Writing in RAM in July 1976, Bob Edmunds described the album as being "as impressive as anything Yes have produced collectively... Musicians with greater skills (e.g. Mike Oldfield) have created instrumental works on this scale but have always been denied access to the wonderful instrument of Jon Anderson's voice. Endless tours have done nothing to detract from one of the richest, purest voices in rock…. Olias has a continuity of intensity rarely found on any album, let alone one this ambitious. It won't go down too well with those who reject anything except full-tilt rock'n'roll. But there's no way you can deny the sheer grandeur of Jon Anderson's music, no matter what opinions you hold about rock."^[11]

In Allmusic, Dave Connolly concludes "the idea may seem overly ambitious, but Anderson fills the record with enough magical moments to delight fans of Yes' mystic side... at no point does the music lose its spellbinding effect for lack of sonic detail. Olias of Sunhillow is faithful to the spirit of Yes, though decidedly more airy than that band's visceral style - its closest comparison would be Fragile's "We Have Heaven" or Going for the One's "Wonderous Stories" (which was clearly influenced by this record) on the vocal tracks, and Greek progressive electronic composer (and future Anderson collaborator) Vangelis on the instrumental tracks.... Olias of Sunhillow is not the missing Yes album some might hope it to be, though it does prefigure the later Jon & Vangelis collaborations of the '80s."^[12] Writing on his own Progrography website, Connolly has also commented that "it's not a stretch to say that Olias of Sunhillow looks and sounds like (Roger) Dean's previous Yes artwork come to life. Since Anderson himself handles all the instruments, the album is an airier affair than Yes, and yet at the heart of these songs is the same captivating, intoxicating core that the singer brought to that band.... Olias of Sunhillow is the one Anderson album most likely to please Yes fans, immersed as it is in their mystical aura. It's also a gorgeously packaged product (in LP form, anyway), which helps set the mood immeasurably."^[13]

Writing about Olias of Sunhillow on his Mewsings blog in 2009 (thirty-three years after the album's initial release), Murray Ewing reflected "there’s a dangerous swerve towards the New Age in Anderson’s first solo album, both in the optimistic whimsy of its fantasy world, and the musical palette of soft, sparkling synths and world instruments. Thankfully, it easily escapes that particular doldrum of musical hell through sheer energy (on the musical front) and sheer weirdness (on the fantasy front). This isn’t music to attune your chakras to, it’s adventurous, full of drama, uplifting melodies, evocative soundscapes, and a fresh unearthliness that makes it the only fantasy album I can think of which genuinely sounds like it could have come from another world."^[14]

Reissues

The album has been released several times. A recent US CD release was by Wounded Bird Records on 28 February 2006. Contrary to some earlier releases it presents all the artwork, but very small,. Some earlier cd-releases don't show all the original artwork and only part of the story, since they left out pages 3-6 of the original vinyl album. The Japanese pressing on MMG Inc/Atlantic AMCY-18 presents the complete artwork in a booklet, like the vinyl version with 8 pages (including frontcover and backcover).

The album was reissued in January 2014 on SACD by Audio Fidelity.