TIME and a WORD
OVER THE COURSE of more than 50 years, Yes have survived lineup changes that would have done in lesser bands. Certainly, the 2015 death of founding bassist Chris Squire was a major blow to the long-running British prog-rock act. Squire was the only band member to have appeared on every Yes album from the group’s inception in 1968. Now his melodic lead-style bass work, with its distinct and dynamic tone, would not be heard again.
As it happens, his former bandmates had other plans. Shortly after Squire’s passing, Yes guitarist Steve Howe and keyboardist Oliver Wakeman decided to revisit previously unreleased studio recordings that feature Squire. The results can be heard on the mini-LP From a Page (Yes 97 LLC), available exclusively from BurningShed.com.
“My goal was to go back 10 years and revisit recordings that nobody has heard before, and the results are pretty astounding,” Howe says. “These tracks are definitely comparable to Yes’s best ’70s work in many ways. They offer a range of expression that I’d say are equal to the [1996] Keys to Ascension studio tracks in a way that there’s complexity. There’s beauty. There’s excitement. There’s a high level of perfection, and what’s evident is that the music comes up to shine very strongly.”
The four previously unreleased tracks, the band’s first studio album in 10 years and its first with David and Wakeman, the son of former Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman, who shared keyboard duties on it with Geoff Downes. Rather than let the unused tracks sit on the shelf, Howe and Wakeman dusted them off and gave them a new life. In addition to being offered as a mini-album, the songs are included in the three-CD box set version of , which includes a reissue of the 2011 double live album , which was recorded in 2009.
