Jon Anderson & Roine Stolt – Invention of Knowledge (2016)
Vocalist, songwriter, composer and painter Jon Anderson is going through a highly creative phase. Progressive rock made him famous and he is revered by several generations of musicians and music fans. While his former Yes bandmates are wasting time recording mediocre rock albums, in recent years Jon Anderson has teamed up with progressive music masters. He formed a band with jazz-rock violin wizard Jean-Luc Ponty and now he has teamed up with one of the great musicians in the current progressive rock scene, Roine Stolt.
Jon Anderson and Roine Stolt’s collaboration is titled Invention of Knowledge and this is full-blown progressive rock. Jon Anderson has created new songs infused with the magic that made Yes famous. For progressive-rock era Yes fans, Invention of Knowledge has plenty of connections to the Yes sound in the form of Anderson’s lead, harmony and overdubbed vocals as well as the bass lines and magnificent keyboard work. But this album does not sound completely like a classic Yes album. Roine Stolt has a very different guitar style from Steve Howe and the additional guests brought to the recording sessions add exciting new elements.
“For me, this is an album that will prove to be timeless,” says Swedish musician Stolt. “In the way that you can put on a Yes album from the ’70s now and it still sounds fresh, so I feel people will be able to listen to what we have done here in 10 years’ time and it will still make an impact.”
The initial idea to bring together the iconic former Yes vocalist and The Flower Kings and Transatlantic’ virtuoso Roine Stolt came from the owner of the InsideOut label, Thomas Waber. “It was Thomas who originally told me that I should work with Jon Anderson,” remembers Stolt. “But at the time, Jon was just so busy that I couldn’t see any way this might happen.”
Luckily, the two musicians met at the Progressive Nation At Sea cruise. Mike Portnoy, a member of intercontinental progressive rock band Transatlantic proposed doing a couple of songs live with Jon Anderson. What was originally planned to be a 20-minute collaboration turned out to be one hour, with Transatlantic playing the first side of the Yes masterpiece ‘Tales from Topographic Oceans.’ Jon and Roine got along very well. “Roine and I had a wonderful instant connection when we met on that boat out of Miami two years ago,” says Anderson.
After that, ideas started flowing. Jon and Roine exchanged musical ideas across the Internet. Current technology enabled this transatlantic collaboration. Jon Anderson sent files to Roine with his ideas. Jon Anderson indicated that he wanted the freedom to go beyond a traditional album, incorporating musical traditions from any part of the world. Although Invention of Knowledge is definitely a progressive rock, it does incorporate global music traditions like tribal rhythms, sitar and other sounds.
Roine Stolt recruited bassist Jonas Reingold on bass (The Flowers Kings), drummer Felix Lehrmann (The Flowers Kings) on drums, American keyboardist Tom Brislin (the Yes Symphonic Tour), Lalle Larsson on keyboards and Michael Stolt on bass. The backing vocalists include Nad Sylvan (Steve Hackett), Daniel Gildenlow (Pain of Salvation), Anja Obermayer, Maria Rerych, Kristina Westas, and Roine Stolt.
Invention of Knowledge is a beautifully-crafted progressive music masterwork that brings together two highly creative minds. One of the best progressive rock albums of the year. Highly recommend.
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