Жақын Шетте (Jaqın Şette)

1972 studio album by Yes

Close to the Edge is the fifth studio album by English progressive rock band Yes, released on 8 September 1972 by Atlantic Records. It is their last album of the 1970s to feature original drummer Bill Bruford, who found the album particularly laborious to make and felt unable to contribute better ideas, which influenced his decision to join King Crimson once recording had finished. After scoring a critical and commercial hit with Fragile and touring the album, Yes regrouped with engineer Eddy Offord to record a follow up. The album's centrepiece is the 18 minute title track, with lyrics inspired by the Herman Hesse novel Siddhartha. Side two contains two non conceptual tracks, the folk inspired "And You and I" and the comparatively straightforward rocker "Siberian Khatru". The album's cover, designed by Roger Dean, marked the debut of the band's "bubble" logo. Close to the Edge became the band's greatest commercial success at the time of release, reaching No. 4 in the UK and No. 3 in the US, where it sold over one million copies. The album's 1972 1973 tour comprised over 90 dates worldwide and marked the debut of drummer Alan White, who joined the band three days before it started. It was reissued in 1994, 2003, and 2013; the latter release includes previously unreleased tracks and new stereo and 5.1 surround sound mixes. Close to the Edge has since received widespread critical acclaim; in 2020, it was ranked 445th on Rolling Stones list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".

By 1972, Yes had settled with a line up of lead vocalist Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire, drummer Bill Bruford, guitarist Steve Howe, and keyboardist Rick Wakeman. In March 1972, they wrapped their six month Fragile Tour of the UK and North America to support their fourth album, Fragile (1971). The album became their biggest commercial and critical hit since their formation, helped by the track "Roundabout" receiving considerable airplay on American radio. On 1 and 2 February 1972, during one of the tour's rest periods, the band booked time at Advision Studios in London to put down some tracks for a follow up record. When touring finished, they took another break before they entered rehearsals at the Una Billings School of Dance in Shepherd's Bush in May 1972. Although some arrangements were worked out and put onto tape during this time, none of the tracks were fully written at this stage, leaving the group to devise the rest of the songs in the studio and learn to play them through afterwards. On several occasions the arrangements that Yes had started to assemble were so complex that they were forgotten by the time the next day's session began. This caused the band to record each rehearsal for future reference. Bruford devised the album's title to reflect the state of the band at the time.

By June 1972, Yes had worked out songs for the album and returned to Advision to record it. Eddy Offord, who had worked with Yes since Time and a Word (1970) and had mixed their live sound on the Fragile tour, assumed his role as audio engineer and producer, sharing his production duties with the band. During their month at Advision, Melody Maker reporter and band biographer Chris Welch paid a visit to observe the group at work. Welch described a stressful atmosphere, coupled with "outbursts of anarchy" from Bruford, Howe, and Wakeman and disagreement from each member after one mix of a song section was complete. Welch sensed that the band were not a cohesive unit, with Anderson and Howe the only ones who knew what direction the album was to take, leaving the rest adding bits and pieces "to a vast jigsaw of sound", to which Squire and Offord were the two who helped put their idea into shape. Wakeman and Bruford, to Welch, remained "innocent bystanders" in the matter. In one instance, Welch arrived at the studio to hear a preview of a completed passage that took several days of round the clock work to produce. He heard a dull thud, to find that Offord had fallen asleep on top of the mixing console from exhaustion, "leaving music from the spinning tape deck blaring at an intolerable level". Howe later disagreed with Welch's description, and said his report might have been based on Bruford's comments at the time. Howe said that the main source of tension was between Squire and Bruford, particularly when Squire suggested that Bruford alter his drumming to accommodate bass parts that Squire wanted to play. itself inspired when he had lived in Battersea, an area beside the River Thames. Anderson was inspired to base its theme and lyrics on Siddhartha (1922) by German novelist Hermann Hesse, and revised the song's lyrics "three or four" times, saying "it's all metaphors". measured approximately 40 feet in length and took two days to record. Anderson was inspired to include the bird sounds, and the instrumental section in "I Get Up, I Get Down", from hearing Sonic Seasonings (1972), an electronic ambient album by Wendy Carlos. Anderson suggested starting with an improvised group jam, which the group saw as adventurous and is one of the reasons why the band comes in out of nowhere on the final take. The track was assembled in pieces throughout, as Bruford described, "in ten, twelve, sixteen bar sections". Its introduction came about after the band had toured with fusion group Mahavishnu Orchestra; someone in the band suggested having the piece open with improvisation with pre arranged pauses. The music played during the "Close to the edge, round by the corner" section was originally a same titled song that Howe had put together several years prior, in part based on the longest day of the year. Anderson and Howe agreed this section fit best with an Anderson composition titled "Total Mass Retain", thus joining the two ideas together. Howe had prepared another song, of which its middle eight was adapted into the "In her white lace" section of "I Get Up, I Get Down". The band produced a take of the section after the church organ solo that they were satisfied with, but when it came to inserting it into the final mix, Offord had inserted the take he thought was the right one and placed the good take in the bin of scrapped tape. The result caused a noticeable tape edit that had to stay in the mix as the task of reproducing the sound exactly would have been a near impossibility. Anderson sings the final verses in G minor, which had to be scaled down to F on stage due to the strain on his voice.

"And You and I" originated as a more folk oriented song that Anderson developed which was based around the idea of presenting a theme and building it as the track progresses. In its original form, the song had an extended ending that Welch described as "a shattering climax", but its popularity amongst the band decreased over time, leading to their decision to cut it from the final version. In a newspaper review of a Yes show in August 1972, the writer paraphrased that Anderson calls the song "a tale of the search for truth and purity between two people". Anderson himself said it is similar to that of a hymn, in the sense of feeling "secure in the knowledge of knowing there is somebody God maybe". The track starts with Howe on a Guild 12 string acoustic that belonged to Squire, initially playing improvised harmonics and saying "Okay" in response to Offord who signalled to Howe that he was ready to record. The moment was not part of the song, but Offord liked it and persuaded the band to keep it in. "The Preacher, the Teacher" was developed in a single afternoon. Anderson suggested the idea of it having a more country feel, to which Howe and Squire came up with respective guitar and bass arrangements that Anderson thought "sat together so sweet".

Close to the Edge was packaged with a gatefold sleeve designed and illustrated by Roger Dean, who had also designed the cover for Fragile (1971). It marked the first appearance of the band's bubble logotype, placed on top of a simple front cover design of a linear colour gradient from black to green. Dean gained inspiration for the artwork during a visit to Haystacks, a tall hill in the Lake District. He took a photograph at its summit and observing the many tarns surrounding it. "I was imagining this lake as something grander [ ] How could it sustain itself on the tippy top of a mountain?" The sleeve includes pictures of the group and Offord that were photographed by Dean and Martyn Adelman, who had played with Squire in the late 1960s as a member of The Syn. On reflection on the album's design, Dean said: "There were a couple of ideas that merged there. It was of a waterfall constantly refreshing itself, pouring from all sides of the lake, but where was the water coming from? I was looking for an image to portray that".

Close to the Edge was released on 8 September 1972 in the UK and on 13 September 1972 in the US, six weeks into the band's 1972–73 world tour to promote the album. It became their biggest commercial success since their formation, reaching number 3 on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States and number 4 on the UK Albums Chart. In the Netherlands, the album went to number one. The album received 450,000 advanced orders in the United States. On 30 October 1972, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for 500,000 copies sold in the United States. The album continued to sell, and was certified platinum for one million copies sold on 10 April 1998. Yes released "And You and I" as a two part single in the United States in October 1972. In the United Kingdom, the song was released in its entirety with "Roundabout" on its B side. It peaked at number 42 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the United States for the week of 16 December 1972. A single edit of "Total Mass Retain" was released as the B side to the group's non album single, a rendition of "America" made famous by Simon & Garfunkel, released on 17 July 1972.