2021 Eliminations Ep. 4: black midi VS. Transatlantic

Post on Cavalcade Preview featuring The Breath of Life

2021 Album Preview Series: Rhapsodies in June

Brief impressions of albums in play for June 2021, including:

black midi – Cavalcade (2021)
Lyle Workman – Uncommon Measures (2021)
Japan – Quiet Life (1979)
The Biology of Plants – Vol. 2 (2018)
Transatlantic – The Absolute Universe: The Breath of Life (2021)
Steven Wilson – The Future Bites (2021)

Relevant Links:

Text post on early Porcupine Tree

And on Steven Wilson’s first solo album

And on The Raven That Refused to Sing

Text post on Transatlantic’s Kaliedoscope

Flashback to the Oughts: 2001

As I started to wade into the possibility of curating “best-of” playlists retroactively an even more dangerous idea came into my head: should I commit to posting a series on the project?

I have done a couple of series on the blog, and in retrospect they have been a mixed bag.  I completed a good series on Rush’s studio catalog leading up to the release of Clockwork Angels, but I also have a series on Jellyfish’s ties to other power pop groups that, unfortunately, remains unfinished to this day (although I do have an idea as to how it ends). More recently, The Superhero Theme Project documented my efforts to convince my eldest daughter P that a set of carefully selected orchestral pieces were actually superhero themes.  That was a very satisfying run that stretched out over a couple of years, but due to the nature of the project/experiment it had no clear conclusion and fizzled out towards the end.

In retrospect, a deciding factor for the success of a series is clear boundaries, which Flashback to the Oughts will have: ten posts each with ten outstanding selections to represent every year between 2000 and ending in 2011, the year that the blog began.  Like my annual “best-of” lists, selections will be made primarily based on the albums relevance to my experiences that year, rather than release date.  This provides continuity with the parameters that already exist on the blog.

It also makes things significantly more difficult to reconstruct because experiences don’t necessarily line up with the calendar year.  In 2001 I had a home situation that was to get worse before it got better, causing a move under duress that make my memory episodes particularly disjunct.  The list that follows, however, lines up well with both my recollections and what little actual documentation exists from that year.

10. Gorillaz - Gorillaz:  I admit that this entry is problematic because I did not (and still do not) think that it holds together well as a cohesive album.  Clint Eastwood, however, became so ubiquitous in 2001 that I cannot think about that year without it coming to mind.

9. Yes - Magnification: This album’s grandiose orchestral approach promised an interesting direction for the group, and at times it captures the best aspects of Yes.  It was not without its flaws, however, and would also sadly be the last time that Jon Anderson would record with the group.

8. Arena - The Visitor:  I am wary of melodramatic progressive rock vocals, but Arena’s rumination on a near-death experience is “more Marillion than Marillion." I tried to follow them after singer Paul Wrightson left, but none of them resonated with me like The Visitor did.

7. Chomsky - Onward Quirky Soldiers: Chomsky’s follow-up to A Few Possible Selections to the Soundtrack of Your Life had many outstanding songs and performances.  It also seemed a little forced at times, as the band was furiously paddling out to catch the last wave of big record label support before the music industry ran still.

6. Ours - Distorted Lullabies: Bandleader Jimmy Gnecco positioned himself to fill the void left by Jeff Buckley with this release, and he was pretty convincing in the role.  I had a particularly memorable moment wandering in a German forest in 2001 with Distorted Lullabies on a Discman.

5. Transatlantic - Bridge Across Forever:  Although it did not reach the same heights as its predecessor, Transatlantic’s sophomore release was noticeably more consistent.  The band’s members seemed to have developed a better rapport both in terms of collaboration and performance.

4. Anekdoten - From Within:  With a dark gothic approach that used King Crimson’s Red as a starting point, Anekdoten had a thunderous take on progressive rock that stood apart from the clean symphonic work that I was into around this time.

3. Weezer - Weezer [green]: While many fans criticized Weezer [green] as a sellout after the relatively adventurous Pinkerton, its direct, streamlined songwriting seemed to speak directly to my inner teenager.  That insecure part of me probably needed some attention at the time due to the circumstances surrounding that year.

2. Jon Brion - Meaningless: Again, due to my fascination with the Jellyfish Family Tree, this was probably one of my most highly anticipated albums of the year, and I went to great lengths to procure a copy as soon as it was available.  It did not disappoint me in the least - it remains a unique power pop classic in my collection.

Album of the Year 2001

1. Tool - Lateralus:  I had checked out Tool in the early 90s when they released Undertow and although I liked it well enough, I did not follow them after that.  At the suggestion of a student, I gave Lateralus a shot and was blown away, and to this day I am still unraveling the complexities of the album.  

Flashback to the Oughts: 2000

In my last roundup, I described how using Plex as my primary music portal in the house has subtly changed my listening habits. Most prominently, I compiled some playlists using the year-end “best of” postings on this blog - one for each year since I started posting in 2011. Although I still prefer listening to full albums, making these lists was pretty satisfying and provided me with a plan of attack for expanding the library on my computer.

Then, dangerously, I got to thinking: would it be possible for me to reconstruct my listening history and memory episodes well enough to retroactively create a top ten list for a year without a formalized "best-of" list to go by? If so, how far back could I go?

Well, the blog started in 2011 as a way to satisfy the writing addiction that I had generated during my master's thesis. Its seeds, however, were actually sown way back in the early 00’s, when I was a decently ranked Amazon reviewer. Using these prototypical postings as a starting point, I was able to assemble pretty satisfying lists that stretch all the way back to 2000.

To set the stage, it is worth mentioning that the progressive rock “supergroup” Transatlantic released their debut album SMPTe in 2000. Although it did not make the top 10, the album had a huge impact on my listening habits that year. My investigations into Transatlantic led me down a virtual prog rock rabbit hole. The list reveals that I was clearly in the throes of this “progressive rock renaissance” in 2000. There was also a smattering of power pop, local, and alternative music, which were the primary strands I was following at the turn of the century.

10. Spock’s Beard - V: By 2000, I had already ordered all of Spock’s Beard’s back catalog from progressive rock websites. In some ways, V felt like a culmination of all of their work, and served as the template for Neal Morse’s contributions to Transatlantic.

9. Radiohead - Kid A: For a good portion of 2000, I theorized that if The Bends was Radiohead’s Joshua Tree, and if OK Computer was their Achtung Baby, then Kid A could be their Zooropa, which was not intended to be a compliment. Time has shown this analogy to be foolhardy, however, and Kid A ended up launching the band on a creative trajectory that informs their path even today.

8. The Flower Kings - Flowerpower: This was one of the albums that Transatlantic led me to, and was my introduction to the group. At over two hours of music, it’s a lot to take in at once, but in terms of quality material it stands as one of my favorite Flower Kings releases.

7. King Crimson - The ConstruKCtion of Light: The detuned vocals that opened lead track “Prozac Blues” clearly announced that this would be a unique iteration of Crimson. Once the initial shock wore off, however, The ConsctruKCtion of Light proved its legitimacy in the band’s catalog.

6. Aimee Mann - Bachelor No. 2: I admit that my reception of this album was a bit lukewarm in 2000, mainly because I was disappointed that Jon Brion’s (whose work I was obsessed with thanks to The Greys) fingerprint was not as prominent as it had been on its predecessor I’m With Stupid.  Time has been incredibly kind to it, though, and although clearly being associated with the year 2000 in my mind, Bachelor No. 2 has also transcended this time, earning “classic” status.

5. Kevin Gilbert - The Shaming of the True: This is an incredibly heartfelt rock opera by one of the industry’s most tragically unrecognized musicians. Gilbert passed on before it was completed, but Nik D’Virgilio of Spock’s Beard compiled and released it posthumously, allowing Gilbert’s unique genius to shine brightly one last time.

4. Porcupine Tree - Lightbulb Sun: I was gobbling up Porcupine Tree during this period, and I know that I also was into The Sky Moves Sideways, Signify, and Voyage 34 in 2000. Lightbulb Sun, the immediate successor to the pristine Stupid Dream, was the standout.

3. Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory: This still stands in my mind as Dream Theater’s finest moment, where it seemed as if they might evolve into something beyond prog-metal. Alas, they fell into the trap of their own nostalgia and have never quite recapture the magic of this great rock opera.

2. The Flaming Lips - The Soft Bulletin: In 2000, this album was nothing short of magical. I spent a whole summer driving around Denton with this gleefully blasting out of my car windows.

2000 Album of the Year

1. Chomsky - A Few Possible Selections for the Soundtrack of Your Life: If you were around me at all in early 2000, I guarantee that I tried to get you to listen to this album. I loved everything about it - its energy, its angularity, its quirkiness, its intelligence, and its surreal album art.

Making a Play: Anderson/Stolt's "Invention of Knowledge"

I have long argued that Yes’ perpetually changing lineup puts the band in the unique position to survive beyond the participation of its defining members. Holding tightly to this theory, I have had quite a bit of fun fantasizing about what that “Nu-Yes” might look like. With the installation of Jay Schellen as interim Yes drummer while Alan White recovers from a medical procedure, three-fifths of my “Nu-Yes” dream team has miraculously found its way to the stage. The creative potential of this line-up is intriguing, but part of me has to admit that it is a little weird. I have some sympathy for fans who think that Yes is evolving into their own cover band, a position that is reinforced by a simple fact:

They have not released any new music.

Simultaneously, former singer and founding member Jon Anderson, who parted ways with the band several years ago, has been passively maneuvering himself into position as the true location of contemporary Yes music. Many of his projects, however, have similarly focused on reinventing Yes’ back catalog, rather than creating new music in the Yes tradition. The exception, however, is Invention of Knowledge, his recently released collaboration with Roine Stolt from The Flower Kings, which, from a certain perspective, might be the best Yes album that has been released in quite a while.

Strictly speaking, and certainly from a legal standpoint, Invention of Knowledge is not a Yes album. It does, however, capture and expand on certain aspects of Yes music in a way that will please many fans. As far as personnel go, the album’s direct ties to the Yes family tree are relatively minimal, but its core personnel offer up an alternate “Nu-Yes” configuration that is, in some ways, a challenge to my own hypothetical group.



I have been a fan of Roine Stolt and the Flower Kings for decades, so naturally in my prog “fantasy football” exercises, I had considered Stolt as a potential successor to Yes guitarist Steve Howe. This was not necessarily because he is a Howe copycat, but because it seemed like he could bring to Yes what Howe brought to Yes, both as a player and a contributor, without surrendering his unique guitar voice. Due to his busy schedule with the Flower Kings, Transatlantic, and other seemingly endless prog projects, however, his inclusion seemed too unrealistic. Therefore, it is a joy to see him realize his potential as a contributor to the Yes sound. Stolt also brings a cadre of outstanding musicians from the Flower Kings collective, not the least of which is go-to prog bassist Jonas Reingold, who dances elegantly around inevitable comparisons to the late Chris Squire by playing in his own distinctive voice.

These musicians certainly have a palpable “Yes-ness” in their musical DNA and serve the music well, but the inclusion of Tom Brislin on keyboards really tethers Invention of Knowledge to the Yes family tree. Like Oliver Wakeman, Brislin was a Yes keyboardist that never really got the chance to contribute to the overall Yes canon other than playing already established parts. Invention of Knowledge gives him the opportunity to show what he could have done for the group during those lost years and perhaps even gives him the leverage to nudge Gleb Kolyadin out of my own hypothetical dream team.



I would call the album a great success that reveals more greatness with repeated listens, but despite this, I am not sure that I ascribe to the camp that wishes Anderson would return to Yes. He is an amazingly gifted vocalist that could literally sing anything and make it sound good, perhaps to his detriment. Yes is known for its complex and often cosmic aspects, but memorable songwriting has always been at the core of the band’s best work. Ever since Magnification, however, I increasingly sense that Anderson has come to prefer a freer, more improvised feel to his work that perhaps might not align with Yes’ ongoing intention to craft accessible melodies within complex structures.

Taken on its own, however, The Invention of Knowledge works because Stolt has a similarly wandering spirit and a work ethic that can bring broadly conceived ideas to their conclusion. I think that their conceptual common ground and collaborative relationship resulted in a more consistent album than Yes’ most recent effort and, as such, could be seen as a compelling challenge to the band’s authority to wield the name.

On the other hand, I am an advocate for the band’s current direction, but unlike some of Yes’ more myopic fans, I don’t think that excludes me from supporting Jon Anderson. Truth is, although I still stubbornly file my Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, and Howe disc between Big Generator and Union, I am not convinced that Invention of Knowledge is really the successor, or even a competitor, to Heaven and Earth. It aligns more closely with Jon Anderson’s solo repertoire and probably is more fairly considered as such. It is not hard to secretly indulge in the fantasy, however, that it might be the best Yes album that you will hear this year.