YESSHOWS
The Original Opening Music Albums and a Guide to Pre and Post YESshow Music
by David Watkinson
YES’ Adventures In Electronic Music
It was clear early on that Jon Anderson and Chris Squire wanted the variety of additional sounds for YES. The music had to be bigger bolder as they grew, more choral, orchestral, and electronic, whatever it took to build up the YES sound could be employed, there was no boundaries or limitations.
Jon had wanted to be more involved in the live sound on stage and early in the 1970’s he could be seen playing a small keyboard on stage, referred to as the ‘Maccano’ synthesiser/Moog, (Maccano being a UK child’s metal construction toy, used to build many varied items) it was a set of Dewtron Mister Bassman pedals which was developed before the Moog Taurus Bass Pedals. Jon would play them on a few of the tracks but was known and best used for the “Würm” section of Starship Trooper. They were a simple circuit and sound for players to create additional bass sounds to fill up the sound, they sometimes went through a fuzz box also. It had a dial which changed the frequency of the note-and also the tone.
Jon’s continued exploration into the electronic music world took another step straight after Close to the Edge. Supposedly a friend called round and lent Jon a couple of interesting records, one being by Vangelis, ‘Creation Du Monde‘ and one by a Turkish electronic specialist, Ilhan Mimaroglu, this one likely to have been the album ‘Wings Of The Delirious Demon And Other Electronic Works’. Jon admitted that these two albums shocked him, made him jump into life, even coming from Wendy Carlos’ music he knew of, such as Switched-On Bach (1968), The Well-Tempered Synthesizer (1969), or something like Sonic Seasonings (1972). There was an astonishment at what one person could do all on this on their own, both artists intrigued him so much with Vangelis being the one he contacted, eventually going on to meet him in France. Jon described these albums in the similar manner as the orchestral classics he was hooked on, “A complete symphony of energy, a totally idea of music, very electronic and frightening at times, schizoid music, extraordinary music.”
Steve Howe speaking about his musical influences in the UK music paper, the NME in July 1973, also included the unique electronic exponent, Ilan Mimarogla. Highlighting the future of YES music was to be partially influenced by electronic music, once again both Jon and Steve were on a similar trajectory, looking again at advancement and progression for the YES sound. Commenting on one of his favourite albums, “Wings Of The Delirious Demon”, Steve said, “This is the kind of music I’ve become interested in and it’s going to be important over the next ten years. A lot of other synthesised electronic music tends to steer away from the fearful, ferocious type of music in favour of the sweet flowing sort of things. This one just gets straight down to the aggression. It lets the Moog jump right out at you. This kind of music has opened a lot of new doors for YES and everybody else. We hope to get more of an electronic feeling on the next album”.
It is very clear having listened to these two albums by Vangelis and Ilhan, plus putting the timing Jon and Steve listened to them into context, that both Relayer by YES and Olias of Sunhillow by Jon had many influences taken from them. A fascinating insight on the development of YES music. Looking at the electronic releases for the start of the 1970’s and at the variety and scope of the music, it was clear this new music was hugely different than anything that had come before, with all of it fresh material and new mind-blowing sounds. Tangerine Dream – Electronic Meditation, Zeit, Klaus Schulze – Cyborg, Fripp & Eno – No Pussyfooting, Tomita, Debussy – Clair De Lune, Kraftwerk – Autobahn.
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