Squire/Sherwood
Conspiracy

The protagonists of the seventies rock season are all now traveling more or less in their seventies, so it now happens cyclically to sadly bid farewell to one of them who departs to a better life. At the end of last month, it unfortunately happened to Chris "The Fish" Squire: the legendary bassist succumbed to acute erythroleukemia of the bone marrow. To somehow celebrate this incredibly talented and influential musician, I choose to write a few lines, relying on his album released at the end of the millennium, in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist and singer Billy Sherwood, who, in those years, was also with him in Yes.

Squire made history for himself in rock music in general and in progressive music in particular, both as a bassist and as a harmonizing second voice. In both of these skills, he applied his abundant, innate melodic virtues and his studies of harmony and counterpoint absorbed from a young age while performing in an important liturgical choir in London.

Regarding the bass guitar, our hero always disregarded the traditional role of a classic "pedal" base of rock rhythm, as well as the constant and dull occupation of the low frequencies of a track. Instead, he always worked to keep it as upfront as possible, intertwining with other solo instruments (guitar, keyboards, voice), ready in any case to detonate on the beat together with the kick or snare drum whenever rhythmic needs demanded such a union. In this, The Fish was certainly inspired especially by Paul McCartney (for applying strong melodicism to the bass without hesitation and exploiting the entire keyboard, even its highest keys, without fear) and John Entwistle (for the power and rhythmic drive not compromised in any way by the concomitant high melodicism and then for the dynamics and explosiveness of the sound).

Ah, the sound: dry, detonating, clear, drastically distinguishable in any mix thanks to both the execution technique (always using a pick, very strong hands, fingers perpendicular to the strings like guitarists, the weakest pinky used very sporadically) and the type of amplification devised. More in detail, his bass signal went into two different amplifiers: the first, set with a very "clean" sound (little pre-amplification, lots of final amplification), was responsible for keeping the attack of the lower frequencies, the "bottom" of the instrument, well-present and dynamic; the second, on the other hand, had opposite settings and provided more or less abundant doses of distortion and compression to the higher frequencies, aimed at lengthening the sound and making the instrument ready to traverse well-defined and thick melodic lines on the mid tones, which the human ear perceives best. This "sandwich" between the two different sounds forged his peculiar tone and, by extrapolation, a substantial part of the Yes sound brand, a rock group that has always enjoyed a sound all its own, more pop than rock if you will, precisely because of the lack of traditional "pedaling" on the same note or on a few notes that constitute the characteristic rigid and monotonous progression of the musical genre in question.

Chris's vocal talent, not at all inferior to his instrumental skills, endowed Yes, beyond any general judgment one might have of them, with a unique and unrepeatable image in the choirs. Even before the special countertenor talent of frontman Jon Anderson, certainly important, it was indeed Squire's counterpoints that "moved" the Yes melodic lines invaluably, often endowing them not with harmonizations (typically of third and fifth) but with counter-melodies and counterpoint phrases that, together with the more traditional calls and responses and some harmonies here and there, populated the Yes chorale universe with rich textures. Anderson would find the main melody, but it was Squire who would add the counter melody (not always, but often), and in this way, the choirs of this group are unique in the rock landscape, with a complexity second only to that of Gentle Giant and equal to that of the best Queen (Mercury also was no joke in harmonic skills). For completeness, I add that the third voice in Yes, whether of Howe (rather weak) or Rabin (much better though inconsistent), counted for very little, serving simply as a filler in the more choral moments.

A few words about this album to conclude: it is decent and quite listenable. Its merits include the two beautiful voices of the protagonists constantly intertwining, absolute skill and craft in arrangement and execution; its drawback is that no song reaches excellence, and all flow respectably but not laudably, perhaps because the extremely digital recording (sounds that are not entirely natural, "fake" without truly being so for the most part) deprives the music of true soul and corporeality (this is a very typical flaw of the Yes world, and almost unbearable in their less successful works).

It turns out that one of the best tracks is "The More We Live," already heard on "Union," one of the quintet's worst albums, here nevertheless in a decidedly better version. Also notable is the sixth track, "Love Conquers All," a great melodic test for the duo.

I consider the passing of The Fish to be a mortal blow to Yes. It is true that these old British rock dinosaurs have risen from their ashes multiple times, prolonging a very long career that now counts forty-seven years, but this time the blow could be final... We'll see... In the meantime, thank you for everything, Chris, you've been amazing! My CD collection is full of your work, I've seen you in action three times, you're no longer here, but your music will continue to assist me and make me feel good.