| Track: | Rating: | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Indian Summer | | | |
| 2. Reach Out | | | |
| 3. The Sky And His Shadow | | | |
(note: "Reach Out" is a live performance featuring Jon Anderson, Kitaro and Tojiki.)
By its very existence, Yesoteric Volume 17 suggests a number of questions about the practice of bootlegging, and the dangers of excessive fandom for any particular artist.
The two primary tracks on this release ("Indian Summer" and "The Sky And His Shadow") are demo recordings by Jon Anderson. While the latter track sometimes has a certain ambient charm, neither work can be considered as a piece of music in any real sense. The first "track" consists entirely of brief noodlings on a synthesizer; my best guess is that Jon recorded it as a means of testing the sounds that he had at his disposal. The second is very obviously a "home demo", roughly recorded and with miscellaneous disturbances in the background; while it was later used in a public performance by one of Anderson's friends, it falls rather short of professional musical standards.
Jon doesn't deserve any blame for this album. Every artist, after all, has several tapes of music like this -- practice recordings not meant to be taken seriously as artistic statements. Similarly, Yesoteric creator Jeremy Weissenburger shouldn't be blamed for this work -- there actually has been a demand for "The Sky And His Shadow" at times, and, once made available to the general public, these recordings are of some "collector's value". The fault, rather, should be traced to whomever it was that first released these recordings to the interested public.
Most studio bootlegs can be justified, to some extent, by the argument that the material is artistically of interest to fans of the artist's official output -- the Digital Reels Sessions or the Chagall Demo stand as fair examples for Yes/Jon. But such cannot be said of "Indian Summer" and "The Sky And His Shadow". These recordings, quite simply, did not need to be made available to fans -- they reveal little of Jon's musical sensibilities, contain little of independent worth, and may best be judged as the throwaways they are.
As to the specific qualities of each track ... well, quite frankly, there isn't much to tell. "Indian Summer" consists of a variety of synth and drum machine settings, with a few nature sounds thrown in. There's some internal variety, but not enough to stop matters from getting extremely tedious after the first few minutes. One brief section, sounding a bit like Peter Gabriel's "I Have The Touch", might have worked as a segueway number between solo Anderson tracks ... but this is faint praise. It's possible that Jon may have re-used these themes in subsequent works, but it wouldn't really be worthwhile to seek out A/B comparisons.
"The Sky And His Shadow" is a bit better, in that it actually contains some music. In a more polished form, this could work as an Eno-esque ambient recording ... maybe. As it is, not much really happens in this number, with a soundscape-esque tape loop in the background towards the end being a rare high point (of sorts).
Placed between these two ... er ... "epics" is "Reach Out", a live performance from Kitaro's 1992 tour featuring Anderson and Tojiki. The first section of the song is fairly ignorable, with Kitaro playing a melody light enough to rise to the surface on Saturn{*}, and Anderson's mental V-chip causing him to say essentially nothing in the lyrics [fans of ABWH might note the reuse of "release the fear inside", however]. The song is surprisingly concluded with a decent guitar solo and a good band section, which increases its overall value somewhat; even so, this track isn't worth any particular attention.
If you only skip one Yesoteric album, this might be a decent choice.
(review originally posted to alt.music.yes on 8 January 1999)