The Story Of i

About

After the success of Relayer, the band made a decision that next, each member would make a solo album. The Story of I is the first solo album by Patrick Moraz, and by the time it was released he was no longer a member of Ye, but it is considered one of his strongest album. The title The Story of I did not appear on the original release. The “I” (or “i”) is really Moraz’s personal logo, a triangle-like shape standing on its tip and a sphere resting above it; this sign, interpreted by Moraz as “Star Peace”, is how the album was identified both on the spine of the LP cover and in magazines and release material at the time. For reasons of convenience it has come to be referred to as The Story of I although the explanatory story that serves as a unifying link of the pieces on the album is not reprinted on most modern CD releases (on the original LP it was printed on the left side of the inner gatefold cover). Many people at the time assumed the title to be “i” or self-titled (“Patrick Moraz”). The concept album is based around a romantic story of a massive tower in the middle of a jungle. The tower lures people from all over the world to go inside it. Inside the tower, people are able to experience their wildest desires and fantasie. The only rule is that the people inside the tower may not fall in love with each other. However two people inside do so and decide to escape since the tower acts also as a prison which inhabitants are slaves of their own desire. The album consists of fourteen relatively short tracks related to the story. The disc, particularly the percussion section, is strongly influenced by Brazilian music. Much of the Latin percussion was recorded in Rio de Janeiro over two days in August 1975 and dubbed on to the track. The album is also notable for its rich use of pitch-bend controls on the synth/organ notes and its multi-layered, heavy but rhythmically agile synth and keyboard texture. Despite an unusual array of keyboards the music avoids sounding weighed down, repetitive or predictable, due to Moraz’s ability to make his playing partly improvised, something which has long been recognized by listeners and which remains a part of his approach to playing keyboards and composing. The Story of I received many warm reviews and was chosen as the album of the year by Keyboard Magazine. All songs written by Patrick Moraz and John McBurnie (McBurnie’s input is mostly limited to the lyrics in English). The tracks are joined into each other except at the point between tracks 7 and 8, where the LP went from side A to side B, but keyboard figures at the end of (7) and the beginning of (8) mimic how a seamless passage would have been made at the time if it had been possible to do without a break... Jon Anderson was involved with coming up with the concept of The Story of I. While Anderson and Moraz were on tour with Yes they saw an old massive tower. They started to think what was inside the tower and invented many theories which they shared with each other. Jon Anderson encouraged Moraz to do the solo album with the concept of the tower. .

via Last.fm

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