| Track: | Rating: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ABWHM | |||||
| 1. Vultures | | | | | |
| 2. I'm Alive | | | | | |
| 3. Birthright (live) | | | | | |
| 4. Promo Medley | | | | | |
| 5. She Walks Away (instr. I) | | | | ||
| 6. She Walks Away (vocal) | | | | ||
| 7. It Must Be Love | | | | ||
| 8. Shot In The Dark | | ||||
| 9. She Walks Away (instr. II) | | | | | |
| ASIA | |||||
| 10. Ride Easy | | | | | |
| 11. Lying To Yourself | | | | ||
| 12. Go (extended remix) | | | | ||
| 13. Gypsy Soul | | | | ||
| 14. Heat Of The Moment (live) | | | | ||
| 15. Someday | | | |||
| 16. Heart Of Gold | | | |||
| 17. Obsession | | | |||
Yesoteric Volume Two, as the above listing suggests, is devoted to rare tracks by Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe and Asia. Although some of the ABWH material has since appeared on the The Perfect Union bootleg, much of the other material remains not easily attainable (note: I do not possess either of the Archiva releases; ergo, I'm not certain which Asia tracks were reproduced on these). In that sense, this Yesoteric collection fulfills its function extremely well -- it makes hard-to-locate material available to diehard fans in a convenient manner. Jeremy Weissenberger, the compiler of the set, is to be congratulated once again.
The music itself, however, is generally only of middling quality, with a few standout tracks (both good and bad). Incidentally... I will trust that the readers of the this review will forgive any lapses in sentence structure on my part... I'm still recovering from listening to those last three Asia tracks, you see...
The collection begins with "Vultures", an ABWH track which was made available as a b-side at the time of the ABWH album. Many listeners have wondered why this track was placed on the album instead of "The Meeting" or "Let's Pretend"; listening to the track, I would have to sympathize with this conclusion. The track begins with the good percussive buildup, features a good steel guitar section, and has a notable keyboard solo towards the end. Moreover, the listener can be reasonably sure that Bruford, Wakeman & Howe are actually playing on the track, in contrast to some other ABWH material. This, of course, can't be considered as anything other than a good thing. If some of the Anderson/Howe lyrics are a bit awkward, the vocal section towards the end of the track easily makes up for it. A excellent way to start the tape.
Some readers may oppose my high rating for the alternate version of "I'm Alive", but my decision will stand for the moment. Bruford, Wakeman & Howe are actually present on this version, and are thus capable of creating interesting musical accompaniment to the track. Moreover, the melody is fairly decent, if not terribly complex (the Beatles-esque harmonies towards the end were a nice touch). I certainly wouldn't want all Yes-related songs to be like this, but, on its own, this track isn't too bad. (And we can all be thankful that the Yesoteric version of this track spares us the challenge of watching the video version.)
The live version of "Birthright" (where is this from?) is easily the high point of Volume II, and puts the studio version to shame as well. All of the musicians in question infuse this piece with life -- I'm now convinced that when Bill Bruford claimed this track to have been among ABWH's finest, he must have been speaking of the live performances, not the album track. The bass guitar creates an excellent texture throughout the work; as far as "action" goes, Bruford & Wakeman provide more than enough of this during the instrumental section (and Howe's mandolin playing on the vocal return was a nice touch as well). This track alone makes the compilation worth owning.
The next track on the collection is a Promo Medley from the original ABWH release. This begins with Rick Wakeman delivering a narrative on the nature of the project -- some of the humour doesn't quite work, and much of his stated devotion to the project is obviously over-earnest (how could he possibly have said "I don't think that any other group of musicians could really have put this together" with a straight face, given that other musicians did put much of it together), but his criticism of '80s music is quite interesting. Following this introduction, clips from "Brother Of Mine", "Birthright", and "Order Of The Universe" are featured (the album versions, of course, although for some odd reason the drums on "Brother Of Mine" struck me as being higher in the mix than usual). The medley is thus an interesting novelty, but not really essential for those who own the album.
At this juncture, the demos from the second ABWH project begin filtering in, and the quality of the material drops somewhat accordingly. The first instrumental version of "She Walks Away" is almost entirely texture, with not much in the way of a melody to speak of. A brief guitar interpolation doesn't add up to much. This track merits its three-star rating because (i) it's reasonably catchy for what it is, and (ii) it was only a backing demo, and therefore should perhaps be given the benefit of the doubt up to a certain point. The vocal version which follows should thus be better... but, it isn't, really. This is obviously a very rough vocal demo, with Anderson's voice going in and out of the proper range on a regular basis. There is some potential here, just not very much.
"It Must Be Love" is an early version of "Without Hope You Cannot Start The Day". Although I've never been as opposed to the album version as some others, this version is essentially just another rough demo, and can't be judged too highly accordingly. It is worth noting, however, that Wakeman's opening keyboard section is much better than the bit that made the final cut. Also of significance is a brief coda that was also clipped. In a more advanced form, this could have been developed into something better than the album version.
"Shot In The Dark" is basically just a false start -- a handheld recorded of Jon singing a few lines over a rudimentary backbeat -- which cuts out abruptly. There simply isn't anything substantial here to review.
The second instrumental version of "She Walks Away" is an improvement over the other two, with the actual human players apparently having some involvement. With the addition of guitar and advanced keyboard lines, a melody actually emerges through the work. This still isn't a classic, but it's at least listenable in this form.
(Note: All of the demos for the second ABWH project -- with the exception of "It Must Be Love" -- are available on the The Perfect Union bootleg.)
At this juncture, the tape switches from ABWH to Asia. Although one's natural expectations may become somewhat lowered accordingly, the first few Asia tracks remind the listener that, while the original Asia was a sub-par effort considering the talent involved, it at least wasn't a total failure. Indeed, the first three Asia tracks on this set are actually among the better works released by the band (one wonders if Jeremy was simply trying to portray them in the most polite manner possible... tee hee).
"Ride Easy" is actually one of Asia's better songs, featuring a harpsichord opening, a decent Downes/Howe segueway in the middle of the song, and relatively decent lyrics and singing on Wetton's part. Even the anthemic chorus isn't too bad. Asia, quite frankly, doesn't get much better than this... though, of course, that isn't meant in an entirely favourable manner. "Lying To Yourself", while not quite as good, has a decent melody, decent performances, a decent (though too short) instrumental mid-section, and a decent guitar outro. By Asia's standards, this is thus a triumph of sorts. Both of these tracks feature the Downes/ Howe/Wetton/Palmer lineup.
The extended remix of "Go" attains its comparatively high rating through a combination of (i) being one of the better tracks on Astra, (ii) having a few Wakeman-esque keyboard solos thrown in, thus proving that Downes is capable of imitating his style, and (iii) humour value (the tacky remixing of the verses -- Wetton sings a line, special effect, Wetton sings a line, special effect, etc. -- is '80sness as its most... um... distinguished, I suppose). There is a certain catchiness at work here, even if the ending is too long and boring. Mandy Meyer, to his credit, doesn't take any notable solos. ;)
"Gypsy Soul" isn't very good; when the anthemic chorus is the best thing about a track of this sort, something is obviously wrong (and even this wears thin by the second time around). If this is (as I suspect) Mandy Meyer on guitar, his solo essentially reveals him as being an extremely limited player. If it's (as I doubt) Howe, he must have had a terrible case of the flu. Wetton's bass solo is simply rather sad in its rudimentary nature. This isn't a total disaster, but it's essentially just a generic '80s track.
The live version of "Heat Of The Moment" is a stripped-down and abbreviated affair, with the opening guitar line being played by Downes on synthesizer. The sound quality is a bit awkward, but the performance is decent enough. I suppose.
At this point, things begin to go downhill rather quickly. "Someday" is from the aborted demos with Max Bacon on lead vocals, and it's not very good at all. Without Downes's synth texturing, this could very well have been a total disaster. The lyrics are terrible, and the music is not much better (the instrumental outro is "okay"; the rest of the track isn't even up to this level). One might find it interesting to note that the guitars sound vaguely these Mike Oldfield... but this doesn't really help.
The two final tracks are even worse. If these tracks are typical of the John Payne era, then I imagine that I've not missed anything by not buying anything past Then And Now. The first track mixes tacky synth jokes (the hi-tech blips after the line "you are the future" are pretty sad) with AOR banality. The second track starts out slightly better, but quickly devolves into a featureless AOR track.
As always, Yesoteric can be ordered from various sources (check Jimmy Clutter's South Side Of The Sky web page for details). Jeremy W. is not one of these sources, of course... so don't mail him with requests.
This particular Yesoteric is recommended from a historical standpoint, but caution should be given to the low quality of some of the music.
(review originally posted to alt.music.yes on 4 June 1997)