YES “TALK” 30th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set Edition

[gopr]

YES “TALK” 30th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set Edition Featuring 8 Bonus Studio Tracks & Previously Unreleased Live Concert

The Great ‘Lost’ YES Album Available As 2-LP Limited Edition White Vinyl/4-CD/1-CD Released May 24, 2024 on Spirit Of Unicorn Music

“GLORIOUS! IT WAS LIKE A RENAISSANCE OF YES TO ME” - Jon Anderson

“IT WAS MAYBE THE BEST I EVER PLAYED WITH YES’ - Trevor Rabin

“TALK”, the 14th studio album by Progressive Legends YES, was initially released on 21st March 1994 and is often referred to as the great ‘lost’ YES album. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Spirit of Unicorn Music will reissue the album as a 4CD Deluxe Edition featuring bonus studio material and a previously unreleased live show from New York, new interview with the principal players by renowned writer Jerry Ewing, a 2-LP limited edition white vinyl set and a single CD. YES fans will welcome the album’s vinyl version as mint copies of the original, and even the reissue, change hands for hundreds of pounds.

After the stellar success of their album “90125” and the slightly troubled birth of its follow-up “Big Generator” in 1987, which reached the top 20 on both sides of the Atlantic, YES splintered once more. There was talk of getting a new singer, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson was one name bandied around, as were Kansas singer Steve Walsh, Billy Sherwood of World Trade and even “C’est La Vie” singer Robbie Nevil.

YES eventually ‘reformed’ for 1991’s “Union” album and tour, which saw eight members reunite. From those eight, a new YES emerged: Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire, Alan White & Rick Wakeman. Due to managerial reasons, Wakeman could not participate, so enter Tony Kaye on keyboards once more and the “90125” line up was back together. YES also had a new label, Victory Records, headed up by the former Atlantic Records executive Phil Carson, who had personally bankrolled the “Cinema/90125” sessions.

The music and lyrics for “Talk” were written mainly by Rabin and Jon Anderson, and Anderson is adamant that it is his favorite album from the Rabin era of YES, “It was just a beautiful time for me and Trev… it was a very harmonious experience for me.”

“Talk” was also one of the first albums to be recorded and edited entirely digitally, without using traditional audio tape. It was a groundbreaking move at the time, but the technology, as advanced as it was, was not without its problems. In January 1994, Northridge in the San Fernando Valley in California was hit by an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter Scale, and production had to be halted as the early Apple Mac computers they were working on were being affected by the tremors. To put the technology into context now, in its unedited form, “Talk” took up 34GB of memory, which today could be transferred via a flash drive in seconds.

“Talk” was preceded by the release of the opening track, the uplifting “The Calling”, which started to make inroads on US Radio and was followed by “Walls”, which was co-written by Roger Hodgson, from his time working with Rabin in 1990. However, disaster loomed as Victory Music, the original label, went bankrupt shortly after the album’s release, and the album was left to wither and die.

Nevertheless, YES kicked off their US tour for “Talk” that June and played 77 shows in the US, Canada, South America and Japan. Sadly, the tour never got to Europe or the band’s homeland, which is a source of regret to both Rabin and Anderson. Footage of the show in Santiago, Chile, is available online and shows a band playing at their peak. “My regret is I wish there was a live album,” says Rabin. “I wish we recorded some shows properly, it’s just a board mix….but you can feel the energy from it.”

YES finished the “Talk” tour at Hiroshima’s Kousei Nenkin Kaikan on 11th October, 1994. It would be the last time Trevor Rabin would play with YES as a full-time member.

“Talk” could be described as the great ‘lost’ YES album and is probably the most cohesive of the Rabin-era YES albums in sound, and the one closest to the classic YES sound of the 70s, exemplified by the stunning fifteen-minute album closer “Endless Dream”. “When I listen to ‘Endless Dream’ it’s such a great piece of music,” Anderson enthuses today. “It’s one of the great YES pieces of music that not many people know. It’s beautiful. And ‘The Calling’. I love it.”

YES “TALK” 30th Anniversary Edition:

2-LP LIMITED EDITION WHITE VINYL
A1 The Calling
A2 I Am Waiting
B1 Real Love
B2 State Of Play
B3 Walls
C1 Where Will You Be
C2 Endless Dream
a) Silent Spring (Instrumental)
b) Talk
c) Endless Dream
Bonus Track
D1 The Calling (Special Version)

4CD DELUXE BOX SET EDITION
CD1
ORIGINAL ALBUM
The Calling
I Am Waiting
Real Love
State Of Play
Walls
Where Will You Be
Endless Dream
a) Silent Spring (Instrumental)
b) Talk
c) Endless Dream

CD2
TALK VERSIONS
The Calling (Special Version)
The Calling (Single Edit)
The Calling (Radio Edit)
Untitled – Trevor Rabin Instrumental
Endless Dream (Demo)
Where Will You Be (Instrumental)
Walls (Instrumental)
Endless Dream (Excerpt) (Instrumental)

CD3
LIVE CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK 19/06/94
I Am Waiting*
The Calling*
Rhythm Of Love*
Hearts*
Real Love*
Changes*
Heart Of The Sunrise
Roundabout

CD4
LIVE CANANDAIGUA, NEW YORK 19/06/94
Cinema*
City Of Love*
Make It Easy*
Owner Of A Lonely Heart*
Trevor Rabin Piano Solo/And You And I*
I’ve Seen All Good People*
Walls*
Endless Dream*
*Previously unreleased

CD
ORIGINAL ALBUM
The Calling
I Am Waiting
Real Love
State Of Play
Walls
Where Will You Be
Endless Dream
a) Silent Spring (Instrumental)
b) Talk
c) Endless Dream

Pre-order:
Cherry Red:
4 CD: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/yes-talk...panded-edition
CD: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/yes-talk...anniversary-cd
Limited Edition White Vinyl: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/yes-talk...imited-edition

Burning Shed:
All SKUs: https://burningshed.com/store/yes

For more information:
https://www.yesworld.com
http://facebook.com/yestheband
http://instagram.com/yesofficial
http://twitter.com/yesofficial
https://spiritofunicorn.co.uk

Jon Anderson official website: www.jonanderson.com

Press inquiries: Glass Onyon PR, PH: 828-350-8158 (USA), glassonyonpr@gmail.com

[rich]

This will be an auto buy for me. Love this LP and it was a great tour. On my Yes list, I'd say it is their best LP after The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Relayer and Going for the One... I do wish there was a 5.1 disc!

[Steve983]

This will be an auto buy for me. Love this LP and it was a great tour. On my Yes list, I'd say it is their best LP after The Yes Album, Fragile, Close to the Edge, Relayer and Going for the One... I do wish there was a 5.1 disc!

Isn't it strange? Talk is for me the most detested Yes album ever and yet you rate it with what are my faves too. We all hear different things that's for sure.

[rich]

Isn't it strange? Talk is for me the most detested Yes album ever and yet you rate it with what are my faves too. We all hear different things that's for sure.

Strange indeed! And I could not agree more! We all can listen to the same LP and hear and like it completely differently. Tales for example, loved by many. I just don't get that one... and I have tried and tried over the last 4 plus decades. I'd put that at the bottom of my list with Open Your Eyes. Having said that I do think all the LP's through Magnification have at least some really good listenable material on them... Even the last LP's with Benoit and Jon D I enjoy, just not Yes to me, more Yes "like" or Yes "sounding".

I'll leave it at this, Talk, Drama and The Ladder are my favorite non 60's and 70's LP's from one of my absolute favorite bands!

[Steve983]

^^^ Lol! I love Tales, that is top 3 for me along with GFTO and Relayer. Maybe it would be fair to say that Tales and Talk are diametrically opposed.

[Guitarplyrjvb]

I always find it somewhat surprising how many slag "Tales". I guess you had to be a 15 yr. old when listening to it upon release; it seemed to be revealing the secrets of the universe at that time!

[rich]

I always find it somewhat surprising how many slag "Tales". I guess you had to be a 15 yr. old when listening to it upon release; it seemed to be revealing the secrets of the universe at that time!

Well that is about the age I was when it came out. I was and still am a Yes nut and really want to "get" it but just don't. Revealing and Ritual certainly have some nice moments to me. It is in between in my opinion the 2 greatset Yes Lp's, Close to the Edge and Relayer... throw in The Yes Album, Fragile and Going for the One, my favorite 5 Yes LP's! Every couple of years I'm in a thread like this and give it another spin... I guess it it time to give it a listen again!

Having said all that, don't members of the band kind of slag it as well? If I remember correctly Rick in particular?

[rich]

I always find it somewhat surprising how many slag "Tales". I guess you had to be a 15 yr. old when listening to it upon release; it seemed to be revealing the secrets of the universe at that time!

Your last comment made me think when I listen to this this weekend I should concentrate more on the lyrics and message than the music!

[Steve983]

I always find it somewhat surprising how many slag "Tales". I guess you had to be a 15 yr. old when listening to it upon release; it seemed to be revealing the secrets of the universe at that time!

It still does to me aged 60, listening to that album when in the right frame of mind is like a sort of meditation and it still sounds different every time I play it.

[Gizmotron]

Wait, wait! We cannot slag the album (and by extension, every other YES album) until we get to the basics…

So this is “only” re-mastered?

And no surround mix??

[rich]

Wait, wait! We cannot slag the album (and by extension, every other YES album) until we get to the basics…

So this is “only” re-mastered?

And no surround mix??

It does seem that there is no 5.1 mix... which I'm bummed about.

[Gizmotron]

It does seem that there is no 5.1 mix... which I'm bummed about.

Agreed. The relatively dense recording that is Talk would have benefitted from surround.

Generally, the lack of a surround mix on a big re-issue means no multitracks were available. Could this be the case here? On one hand, one would think that it would be hard to imagine an album from the 90s not having the multitracks, but on the other hand, this was one of the first computer-recorded albums, so maybe one can easily imagine no multitracks.