Tormato is the ninth studio album by the English progressive rock band Yes, released on 22 September 1978 by Atlantic Records. It marks the band's final studio release to feature lead vocalist Jon Anderson until 90125 (1983) and keyboardist Rick Wakeman until Union (1991). Following the tour for their previous album, Going for the One (1977), the band members reconvened in London to write and record a follow-up. The production was heavily impacted by a series of internal obstacles, including creative disputes regarding musical direction, the sudden departure of engineer and producer Eddy Offord early in the tracking process, and a decision by the band to self-produce the final mixes.
Musically, the sessions saw the introduction of new instrumentation that heavily shifted the band's sonic profile, including Wakeman's extensive use of the Birotron tape-replay keyboard and the Polymoog synthesizer. The album's final packaging and title–altered from the original working concept of Yes Tor–originated after a tomato was thrown at the initial sleeve design proposed by the art studio Hipgnosis, leading to conflicting historical accounts from the band and crew regarding who was responsible.
Upon its release, Tormato received a mixed response from music critics, who frequently targeted the album's complex arrangements and its compressed production quality. Despite the critical divide, the album was a major commercial success, peaking at number eight on the UK Albums Chart and number ten on the US Billboard 200. It became the band's fastest-selling release in the United States, achieving a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America within two months of release. The single "Don't Kill the Whale" peaked at number 36 in the UK, and the supporting 1978–79 tour featured the band's first live performances executed in the round on a custom-built, central revolving stage. Tormato has since been remastered and reissued multiple times, notably in 2004 with previously unreleased session outtakes and in 2018 as a limited-edition picture disc.
Background In December 1977, the Yes line-up of Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White, and Rick Wakeman concluded their concert tour of North America and Europe in support of Going for the One (1977). The record had marked a significant return to commercial success for the group, topping the UK charts for two weeks and spawning a UK top-ten single with "Wonderous Stories". Yes reconvened at Sound Associates in Bayswater, London, in February 1978 to compose and rehearse material for a follow-up studio release. Although the group sought to develop entirely fresh musical ideas rather than utilising older material, the foundational frameworks for the majority of the tracks were actually conceived during soundchecks and informal rehearsals while on the 1977 tour.
The band's original strategy was to release the new material as a double-volume project split into two parts; the first was scheduled for release in July 1978, while the second instalment was intended to arrive by Christmas. The group initially planned to complete the tracking sessions for the second volume on location in Barbados. However, this plan collapsed due to mounting time constraints and growing tax complications, forcing the band to consolidate the material into a single LP. The album's initial working title was Eleventh Illusion, reflecting the band's intention to centre their upcoming live stage sets around visual illusions.
Recording
Tormato was recorded from February to June 1978, marking the first time the band divided tracking sessions between two different London facilities: Advision Studios in Fitzrovia and RAK Studios in Regent's Park. The musicians were initially divided over where the sessions should take place; Howe and Squire preferred to remain in London, suggesting a location that was "warm and comfortable and easy", whereas other members favoured a return to Switzerland, where they had recorded Going for the One.
The early studio sessions saw the brief return of producer and engineer Eddy Offord, who had not worked with the band in a studio environment since Relayer (1974), though his involvement ceased shortly after tracking commenced. Left without an outside producer, the band members elected to produce and mix the record themselves, retaining Geoff Young and Nigel Luby—both of whom had assisted during the Swiss sessions—as lead audio engineers. This insular management approach caused considerable interpersonal friction; Wakeman later recalled that "no one was afraid to say, 'Well, Jon, I think you should sing this part.' Or 'Steve, that's a bad guitar part.' Tempers got frayed." Howe concurred, noting that these studio arguments ultimately compromised the album's final sonic fidelity and tonal balance. By the conclusion of the tracking window, Yes had amassed enough material to fill an album and a half. Tormato was assembled with nine tracks (with "Future Times" and "Rejoice" paired as a single index), representing the highest number of discrete tracks on a Yes studio release since Fragile (1971).
The tracking sessions featured several instruments that had not appeared on prior Yes records. Wakeman revised his keyboard set-up to feature the Polymoog, a polyphonic synthesiser utilised primarily for "soloing and filling", alongside the Birotron, a unique tape-replay keyboard instrument he had co-funded during its manufacturing phases four years earlier. Wakeman purposefully restricted the overall number of keyboards in his rig to help the arrangements flow more cohesively. During a session break, the band played a practical joke on Wakeman by swapping out his custom Birotron cartridges with a pre-recorded tape of the American soft-rock duo Seals and Crofts. Howe recalled that when Wakeman pressed the keys, he demanded, "What the hell is this?" and became sufficiently frustrated to walk out of the studio. Wakeman later evaluated his performance on the record as being "60 per cent right and 40 per cent wrong." Howe complained that the frequencies of the Polymoog and Birotron clashed with his electric guitar tone, stating they often cancelled one another out, while Squire noted that Howe and Wakeman frequently overloaded individual bars with notes after Anderson tracked basic acoustic guitar chords and subsequently removed them from the mix.
In 2013, mastering engineer Brian Kehew evaluated the album's original sonics as "thin, flat and terrible." Kehew discovered that while Offord typically tracked using the Dolby A noise reduction system, the engineers who succeeded him failed to realise it had been applied, leaving the tapes uncompensated during mixing. Upon applying proper Dolby A decoding to the master tapes, Kehew noted that the core instrumentation immediately sounded excellent.
Musically, Howe identified "Madrigal", "Release, Release", and "On the Silent Wings of Freedom" as his preferred tracks. However, in his 2021 memoir All My Yesterdays, Howe admitted that several of the pieces proved unworkable in a live environment due to the negative studio memories they triggered, recalling: "'On the Silent Wings of Freedom' was actually often tried at tour rehearsals but it would just fall apart", and that "Future Times/Rejoice" was similarly unsuccessful".
Songs Side one
The album opens with the two-part track "Future Times/Rejoice". Anderson wrote the music and lyrics to the piece, later noting that the text was unusually explicit in its meaning compared to his typically abstract, mystical writing style. Musically, the track features bassist Squire playing a harmonised Rickenbacker bass guitar processed through a Mu-Tron III envelope filter pedal, which gave his performance a distinctive, dynamically filtered sound texture.
"Don't Kill the Whale" originated during the 1976–1977 recording sessions for Going for the One in Switzerland, where bassist Squire conceived its foundational bassline and an acoustic guitar passage. Squire later presented the material to Anderson, who integrated the acoustic melody into the song's chorus. The song's environmental theme developed from multiple influences. Anderson wrote the lyrics using an existing poem he had drafted after watching a television documentary about tiger conservation, pivoting the subject matter to marine life to match Squire's music. The band's environmental focus was further galvanised by their friendship with music manager Terry Doran; although a busy studio schedule prevented Yes from accepting Doran's invitation to perform at a whale conservation benefit concert, the gesture directly inspired the track's completion. Musically, the track is notable for Wakeman's keyboard solo, for which he programmed his Polymoog patch to produce avant-garde, filtered textures meant to mimic the vocalizations of a whale.
"Madrigal" is a short acoustic piece that represents a distinct stylistic departure from the rest of the album. The song's concept originated from a suggestion by Anderson to Wakeman that they collaborate on a piece mirroring a traditional English madrigal, a form of historical evening song. To capture the intended Renaissance-inspired aesthetic, Wakeman plays a harpsichord made by Thomas Goff. The track is further distinguished by a subtle string arrangement by Andrew Pryce Jackman, adapted from an original structural idea by Wakeman. Jackman had previously collaborated with Squire on his solo album Fish Out of Water (1975). Retrospective reviews have noted that the classical, acoustic textures of "Madrigal" provided a brief sonic contrast to the dense, synthesizer-heavy arrangements that dominated the rest of the record.
Developed by Anderson and White, "Release, Release" is an up-tempo track that utilised automatic double tracking on White's drum parts to create a more expansive sound. The song was originally titled "The Anti-Campaign", reflecting contemporary political and social shifts, before the title was changed to mirror the repeated vocal refrain at its conclusion. During the studio sessions, Atlantic Records president Ahmet Ertegun visited the band and was so impressed by the energy of the track that he suggested the entire album should follow its stylistic direction. The instrumental break features a simulated live atmosphere, combining Howe's guitar solo and White's drum solo with the sound of a cheering crowd. Wakeman later noted that the crowd noise—sourced from an English football match recording—was added because the isolated instrumental tracks "sounded a bit dry" on their own. Despite Ertegun's enthusiasm, the track proved highly problematic in a concert setting. The demanding, high-register vocal parts caused strain to Anderson's voice, forcing the band to drop the song from their setlist early into the tour.
Side two "Arriving UFO" was built around an initial melodic idea developed by Anderson. Inspired after viewing Steven Spielberg's science-fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) twice in theatres, he sought to compose a track centred on a similar extra-terrestrial theme. While Anderson provided the song's conceptual framework, Wakeman was responsible for composing and arranging its complex instrumental bridge.