Jon Anderson Olias Of Sunhillow

John Roy Anderson (born 25 October 1944), known professionally as Jon Anderson, is an English-American singer and songwriter best known as the former lead singer of the progressive rock band Yes, which he formed in 1968 with bassist Chris Squire. He was a member of the band across three tenures until 2008. Anderson was also a member of Yes Featuring Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Rick Wakeman…

Animation is the third solo album by Jon Anderson, and it shows both hearkenings to the other two and a new energy and direction. When he recorded the first album, Olias of Sunhillow, he was a member of Yes. That album has a strong progressive rock texture, being composed of longer pieces that all weave into one conceptual piece. It is also important to note that that release is a true "solo" work, Anderson performing virtually every sound on the record. By the time he released Song of Seven, both his professional status (he was no longer a member of Yes) and musical theory seemed to have changed. The album was for more pop-oriented, although a few points (the title track, most notably) still contained strong progressive rock tendencies…

Jon Anderson joins conductor Nigel Warren-Green and his London Chamber Academy for orchestral arrangements of new material and old favorites on Change We Must (and that sound you hear in the distance is the small army of Anderson's detractors crying "This time he's really gone too far"). But far from being the exercise in self-indulgence that some would charge, Change We Must proves to be a lovely setting for Anderson's compositions. Expertly produced by the vocalist and Tim Handley, the disc finds Anderson's voice in harmonic balance with a wonderful landscape of orchestral sounds. The combined effect is, in a word, lovely. Beginning with the Jon & Vangelis chestnut "State of Independence," the singer and orchestra achieve a natural beauty that the previous pairing aimed at but rarely captured…

SONG OF SEVEN was a UK top forty hit upon its release by Atlantic Records in November 1980 and spawned a solo tour which established Jon Anderson as a regarded artist in his own right. This Esoteric Recordings edition has been newly remastered from the original Atlantic Records master tapes and is expanded to include two rare US single edits previously unreleased on CD and restores the original album artwork in a digipak.

Animation is the third solo album by Jon Anderson, and it shows both hearkenings to the other two and a new energy and direction. When he recorded the first album, Olias of Sunhillow, he was a member of Yes. That album has a strong progressive rock texture, being composed of longer pieces that all weave into one conceptual piece. It is also important to note that that release is a true "solo" work, Anderson performing virtually every sound on the record. By the time he released Song of Seven, both his professional status (he was no longer a member of Yes) and musical theory seemed to have changed. The album was for more pop-oriented, although a few points (the title track, most notably) still contained strong progressive rock tendencies…

This double-disc set assembles Jon Anderson's own tapes from the New Life Band Song of Seven tour of 1980 on their Sheffield stop (December 3 for those who document such things). The nonet band includes Morris Pert, Ronnie Leahy, Lee Davidson, Jo Partridge, and Barry DeSouza…

.While many Jon Anderson fans knew he had it in him to do something very light and airy and perhaps even without vocals (Olias of Sunhillow essentially led the way), the fact that it's something this light and airy is likely to come as a bit of a shock. Anderson presents the listener with a soundscape made up of long, sustained notes and drifting chords, a construction in which the few melodies present take minutes to work through – there's far more in common with the Hearts of Space catalog here than with much of Anderson's prior work, though the Vangelis influence is to be felt, too (especially on the quarter-hour "New Eire Land")…

Jon Anderson joins conductor Nigel Warren-Green and his London Chamber Academy for orchestral arrangements of new material and old favorites on Change We Must (and that sound you hear in the distance is the small army of Anderson's detractors crying "This time he's really gone too far"). But far from being the exercise in self-indulgence that some would charge, Change We Must proves to be a lovely setting for Anderson's compositions. Expertly produced by the vocalist and Tim Handley, the disc finds Anderson's voice in harmonic balance with a wonderful landscape of orchestral sounds. The combined effect is, in a word, lovely. Beginning with the Jon & Vangelis chestnut "State of Independence," the singer and orchestra achieve a natural beauty that the previous pairing aimed at but rarely captured…