Search - Yes :: Yes Remixes

More of this PLEASE!

M. Beaubien | Hous tone, TX USA | 01/30/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Review before me says it all... you have to have an open mind about this one. If your expecting straight ahead 70's YES go listen to Fragile again. The drum programming is very good(no way could your teenage son does this on the same computer he downloads porn) and he is very creative seeing as it looks like he produced this record from the vinyl only. I wonder what he could have done had he had the masters to work from. I'm a fan of drum n bass, acid jazz, type music whatever you wanna call it and YES. This CD is a perfect match for me."

From a fan and iconoclast

Russell Weems | Smithville, NJ United States | 10/03/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"First let me state from what perspective I review this album. I am a long-time Yes fan, having seen every tour at least once starting with the Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and Howe reunion of 1989. I was an avid follower from even before that time, but that is when I started seeing their shows. I am also an avid music fan in general, voracious for anything new and exciting.With that said, let me highly recommend this album for those who want the taste of the old revamped into the new. I admit that when I first listened to the CD, something inside me cringed to hear these compositions (which have been burned into my soul) deconstructed and set to a techno beat. I know many fans will probably have that initial reaction. Yes, after all, is a conglomerate of musical craftsmen. Though many compositions are quite lengthy, they are not a "jam band", a la The Dead, Phish, or the Dave Matthews Band. Even in concert, the musicians play meticulously and faithfully to the originals, including instrumental sections, and perform more as classical musicians than as free-form rockers. Because of this meticulous construction of composition, those familiar with the original pieces remixed here are bound to be jarred by the jumbling of melodies and structure that Virgil Howe has mixed.However, my senses soon realized that in order to enjoy the beauty of this disk, I must step over to the other side, to hear it from its own perspective, rather than as a purist. Once my Yes-sense was willing to do that, the beauty and power of this disk has unfolded.Virgil Howe (AKA The Verge) is Yes guitarist Steve Howe's son, and if you CAN read the liner notes there is a wonderful anecdote of how he presented the first remix (Heart of the Sunrise) to his father. His father was all encouragement, spurring him on to create a whole disk of remixes. It seems that Virgil sought to take something from every album beginning with "Time and a Word" and going through to "Drama," which was the last album before the 80's Trevor Rabin-led Yes was formed. He found a song from each album, with "Fragile" being the only album represented twice (Heart of the Sunrise, and Five Percent for Nothing).Each song has moments to it, but there are two which I think truly stand out. Virgil's "Siberian Khatru" remix really brings out the funk in the rhythm of the original. He manipulates his father's main guitar line wonderfully and takes it to a brilliant groove. "Five Percent for Nothing" is truly a stroke of inspiration. The original was basically a throw-away piece written by drummer Bill Bruford that lasted no longer than a minute. The impetus on the Fragile album was that each member contribute a solo composition, and Bruford merely dashed off 16 bars, had the band play them twice, and was done with it. Here, Virgil has remixed a fusion piece worthy of Bruford's work with his jazz-fusion band Earthworks. Virgil has pumped up Bruford's signature snare technique perfectly. A one-minute throw-away snippet becomes a five-minute powerhouse. I must commend also "Starship Trooper," which I have half a mind to suggest to Volkswagon as a commercial soundtrack for its Beetle ads; it has that retro-hippie/techno feel to it that seems to be their campaign's musical atmosphere.There are some disappointments on the disk. The audible pops and clicks of vinyl at many points annoy me. I keep thinking that he could have sampled digitized versions, but I understand his medium as a DJ is the turntable. Also, when listening to the CD, more times than not I find myself skipping the remix of "Ritual," one of the four compositions from the magnum opus "Tales from Topographic Oceans." I really think the remix here drags and Virgil could have found something more interesting to groove on in the 20+ minute piece than the "Nous Somme du Soleil" ending, which has always left me flat as an ending to Tales anyway. I am also disappointed that "Sound Chaser," my all-time favorite/never-played live composition, spends too much time on Howe's solo guitar work in the middle of the piece and doesn't make use of the wonderful "Cha Cha" vocal breaks toward the end of the original (though they do make an appearance in the "No Clowns" mix at the end of the disk), which I think he could really have worked up to a wonderful groove, hearing what he did with "Siberian Khatru." However, these criticisms are merely minor gripes. I give full marks for this disk...GET IT!!!"

An radical spin on Yes music.

Warhorse | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada | 09/10/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There are a number of Yes fans who are probably not going to like this album, but these are mostly the sort who only like the early 70s albums and in varying degrees hate everything since.
My advice is keep an open mind. Yes Remixes is not a new studio album, it is what is - a remix album, and a good one at that. When I first heard it, my intimate familiarity with the original songs made it hard to enjoy the intentional looping and other standard remix techniques. If you stop trying to hear the original song in your head and focus instead of the driving beat and take each track on its own terms rather than comparing it to the original, it's actually a pretty infection and cool album. That is, assuming you're an eclectic Yes fan who also likes techno/electronika/club music (that said, not all the tracks would be classified as 'dance'music).
Unlike, say, "The Symphonic Music of Yes", which could be dismissed an unimaginative gimmick, Yes Remixes is more than just assorted Yes music set in a different style, as here the songs are reworked and rearranged. As such it offers something new and interesting to Yes fans.
Inversely, if you are approaching the album more so as a fan of electronika, you'll find the progressive structure of the songs to be a refreshing change.
Virgil Howe (The Verge) did the remixes. His song selection was not based on a list of Yes's most famous songs, but rather those that he felt would be better suited to remixing.
By nature of remixing and looping, the songs become more 'simplified' for the most part. The exception to this is "5 per cent for Nothing". This quirky Bruford 'throughaway' track has been nurtured into something much more engagingly eloberate and one of the best tracks on this collection.
So go ahead, pick this one up. But remember to keep an open mind and listen to it a few times before you pass judgement."