Jon Anderson - Olias Of Sunhillow (Numbered Vinyl)

Numbered 180g Vinyl in Gatefold Jacket

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab's 50th-anniversary edition of Olias of Sunhillow is limited to 2,000 numbered copies, pressed on 180-gram vinyl at 33 1/3 RPM and issued as MFSL 1-646. Krieg Wunderlich mastered it from the original 1/4-inch, 15 IPS Dolby A analog master, transferred to DSD 256 and run through an analog console to the lathe.

The jacket reproduces the original gatefold, with its inner hinged panel and embossed textures, and carries David Fairbrother-Roe's color illustrations. Mobile Fidelity describes the release as the first audiophile vinyl edition of the album and only the second domestic vinyl version since its 1976 release.

Anderson made Olias of Sunhillow, his first solo album, during the 1975 break in Yes's schedule, recording on a mobile studio at his home in Seer Green, Buckinghamshire, and producing it himself. He sang every part and played every instrument, more than thirty in all, among them Minimoog, Mellotron, Rhodes piano, sitar, saz, Celtic harp, marimba and flutes. Atlantic released it in 1976, and it reached No. 8 on the UK Albums Chart, where it was certified silver, and No. 47 on the Billboard 200.

The songs tell one continuous story. Four tribes live on the planet Sunhillow until a volcanic catastrophe threatens it, and the magician Olias builds a vessel, the Moorglade Mover, with his fellow magicians Ranyart and Qoquaq to carry its people to safety. Anderson drew on Roger Dean's artwork for Yes's Fragile, the mystical writings of Vera Stanley Alder and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Dean was unavailable for the sleeve, so Fairbrother-Roe designed it.

Tracklist

Side One

1. Ocean Song
2. Meeting (Garden of Geda)
3. Sound Out the Galleon
4. Dance of Ranyart
5. Olias (To Build the Moorglade)
6. Qoquaq Ën Transic
7. Naon
8. Transic Tö
9. Flight of the Moorglade

Side Two

10. Solid Space
11. Moon Ra
12. Chords
13. Song of Search
14. To the Runner