Peter Banks
Two Sides of Peter Banks

Introduction:

The British guitarist Peter Banks, one of the many magnificent underdogs of the seventies progressive era, left us almost eight years ago, falling victim to a sudden heart attack that caught him while he was alone at home. He was sixty-five years old.

He was a great and fundamentally unfortunate artist, deserving of a few words of regret and remembrance.

Ah, I forgot some necessary notes for music lovers most allergic to biographical info: Banks founded Yes in 1968 (also coming up with its name) together with singer Jon Anderson and bassist Chris Squire; once expelled from the group three years later to make way for Steve Howe, he founded and led the quartet Flash for three albums, unexpectedly disbanding them to chase after a horrid project called Empire that featured his wife as a singer. And then, almost oblivion, interrupted only by sporadic solo publications, hardly retrievable online.

Context:

This album is dated 1973, with the guitarist having just left the Flash project and it is the first, as well as the most known and widespread (so to speak) of the five or six solo albums, no more, that our artist released.

Fate was generous to him in the early years of his career, right up to the release of this work, and then viciously stingy for the rest of his life, which saw him undeservedly disappear from the radar and have to settle for minor collaborations, as well as initiatives under his own name with very poor feedback.

But more than a solo album, the work is actually the brainchild of a guitar duo: the collaboration of colleague and friend Jan Akkerman (at the time with Focus) is indeed copious and fundamental, both in the compositional phase and as an actual instrumental presence.

Quite similar in style, in the sense of a common sensitivity to jazz and classical guitar, and thus inclined towards clean and crystalline sounds as well as improvised and anyway never too structured soundscapes, the two buddies storm to the right (the Dutch Jan) and to the left (the Londoner Peter) of the stereo image, laying atmospheric canvases and then often promptly indulging in free improvisations. The album indeed seems recorded in a hurry and a rush... I bring an idea and you (the other guitarist and the rhythm section) follow me, and feel free to contribute to the “track,” as there is room for everyone.

An instrumental album and moreover semi-improvised then... certainly not food for every music lover, at least not for those who need well-defined structures, verses and choruses, stories and vocals to enjoy their rock music.

Strengths and shortcomings:

Well, from my personal point of view the strength of the album coincides primarily with the fact that it is by Peter Banks, a great talented underdog with all the charm of the person and artist set aside and unjustly forgotten. Additionally, his way of playing attracts me, very personal and brilliant, never pretentious and free from blues and rock blues clichés... a true free spirit, creative particularly with the volume pedal and with the other pedal, the wah-wah.

And then there are the guest musicians, who back then a Banks at the peak of his career could afford to see flock to the studio with him: here and there are Phil Collins and Steve Hackett of Genesis, John Wetton then with King Crimson, former Flash mates Ray Bennett (a sort of poor man's Chris Squire) and Mike Hough (he instead a sort of poor man's Phil Collins).

The shortcoming I already introduced previously: we are practically in the presence of jam sessions... certainly bolstered by melodic and rhythmic themes studied and refined beforehand or in progress, but the deconstructive and extemporaneous sense prevails and could bore those seeking from rock and pop precise forms and studied arrangements.

In short, this work is completely far from any commercial canon! In 1973 it was still possible... at least for one go-round.

Highlights of the album:

A great atmosphere is found in the diptych "The White Horse Vale," in reality a true suite of over seven minutes with classical guitar parts, exciting crescendos of the two acoustic guitars, digressions with echoed repetition and finally a choral part, exquisitely in Yes-style, with the electric instruments riding in unison spurred by the drums in full thrust.

Strong also is the following "Knights" which comes without a break in continuity and is also multiparted: it unfolds in a long rising solo by Banks, which starts on rarefied and atmospheric rhythms and then tightens into a breathless rock break and finally digresses into other more or less choral themes, changing times and situations at random as only progressive music is capable of.

The rest:

Atmospheric situations abound with the two guitars dialoguing through volume pedal fades, without involving the rhythm. Evocative but also a bit too proto new age...

And then there's track number seven "Beyond the Lonelinest Sea" which is essentially a classical instrument essay by Jan Akkerman, with the album's titleholder embroidering just around it a few fading notes. Entirely composed by the Dutchman, what's it doing on his friend's album?

"Stop That!" towards the end is a pure jam session of over thirteen interminable minutes, which coils over a single chord, remaining delicately and evanescently long only to finally strengthen but soon to return to the initial ornamentations: tedious, despite Collins putting in his all. Surely created in the studio at the moment, with no preordained part.

The same goes for the concluding "Get Out of My Fridge" (“Stay away from my fridge”... always intriguing the thought of how musicians come up with the titles of their instrumentals! Who knows what situation between them might have christened this song...): a simple decidedly rock rhythmic framework allows the two guitarists to battle throughout, exchanging completely improvised solos every four bars, and so on.

Final judgment:

A gem for fans of progressive, of Yes, of deconstructed and semi-improvised music, for records that do not start from any point and do not arrive anywhere, but are full of good people who give it their all with their artistic talent and with their ability to adapt and unite with others. The idea of jazz brought into rock. For three-quarters of the time, music improvised in the studio at the moment (by people perfectly capable of doing so), integrated with some beautiful “cinematic” themes.

Peter Banks died alone like a dog and with very few people to mourn him (none of the brave Yes at his funeral, to say): he deserved better and I hold him dear.