New YES release - From A Page- O Wakeman/Benoit era

**Dan Roth** · 10-25-2019

This is an interesting new release - previously unreleased music from the Benoit David/Oliver Wakeman era:

YES REVEALS FOUR PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED 2010 RECORDINGS, ON THE NEW ‘FROM A PAGE’ FIVE PIECE MINI-BOX SET, PERSONALLY OVERSEEN BY EX-MEMBER OLIVER WAKEMAN.

OUT NOW!

YES has returned to the recordings made in late 2010 to mix the four completed tracks as new content for a miniature five piece box set of recordings from that era.

The box features two booklets and three discs containing the four studio tracks and Live From Lyon 2009, all of which were recorded by the line-up of Chris Squire, Steve Howe, Alan White, Benoit David and Oliver Wakeman:

1. To The Moment (6:09)
2. Words on a Page (6:18)
3. From the Turn of a Card (3:24)
4. The Gift of Love (9:52)

Oliver Wakeman has personally overseen the preparation of the previously unreleased recordings which were mixed by Karl Groom and mastered by Mike Pietrini.

The box and one of the booklets features new artwork by Roger Dean, and the graphic design was undertaken by Oliver Wakeman, plus the set also includes his newly written liner notes about his time in the band.

The double CD album Live From Lyon was first released in 2010 and this edition restores “Second Initial” which was previously a Japanese only bonus track. The booklet for Live From Lyon has been re-designed and expanded.

Steve Howe described the project as “Good music never goes away or lays down to the commercial pressures that exist. Oliver's compositions, “To the Moment”, “Words on a Page” and “From the Turn of a Card” demonstrate his musicality and talents, while “The Gift of Love” explores the collaborative essence of YES, pooling ideas and then working together on its arrangement, whilst utilising all of its many themes and variations. Karl Groom and Roger Dean both contributed their skills towards making this a worthy further 'page' in YES' long and diverse musical adventures."

Oliver Wakeman says: “Following Chris Squire’s passing, I felt that the new music we'd created, but not released, should be heard and not sit unfinished on a shelf. And with Steve, Alan and Benoit's enthusiasm for the project, I am proud to know that this music will get to see the light of day and, hopefully, be enjoyed by YES fans as a piece of previously hidden Yes history.”

Alan White added: “I'm pleased to see a gem of YES history coming to fruition in the form of this mini box set. New songs from the past and I'm hoping we can find even more music in the archives for future releases.”

The set is IN STOCK NOW and exclusively available from the band’s own Burning Shed store and it cannot be bought in the shops or on Amazon.

The mini-box set and a vinyl release of the new songs are exclusively available here: https://burningshed.com/store/yes

**auxfnx** · 10-25-2019

damn four new tracks!!! bought, so glad theres a vinyl version that comes with just the new tracks

**Top Cat** · 10-25-2019

Wow, thanks for posting this. I love the music Yes made with Benoit David and Oliver Wakeman.
Looking at the vinyl version only.

**flatliner** · 10-25-2019

Wonder if Laser CD will have this? Hope so....

**Dan Roth** · 10-25-2019

Oliver Wakeman has been posting and commenting about this release on his Facebook:

"It's 25 minutes of music which was recorded when I was in the band but never mixed and released. I've been working on the mixes over the last few years and when Yes heard that I was doing the work we started to talk about how we could get it into a position to release so people could hear it. I hope people like it! (Oddly its probably best described as an EP at 25 minutes but that still makes it on 9 minutes shorter than the Drama album...)"

"These were the tracks we worked on before Trevor Horn came on board and we continued to work on when he went back to the UK in the middle of the recording sessions. I've had all the files on my shelf since I left and started to work on them bit by bit after Chris passed. I wanted to make sure they got released at some point and with help from the Yes management we managed to get them out there!"

**JJ88** · 10-25-2019

This is, presumably, what was recorded before Wakeman Jr. was elbowed and Downes brought back in. Any mention of Trevor Horn producing this stuff?

Interested but not enough to have to get one of those live albums...and one that's been out before already.

**Sean** · 10-25-2019

I think this is a nice turn of events. Oliver's time (and Benoit's) has sort of been swept under the rug, so this will shine a light on their talents in an original setting. Sort of a "What could have been?" had Fly From Here not happened. FFH was really good, btw. But this lets us see what they would have sounded like prior to the Buggles returning.

**abhorsen** · 10-25-2019

I'm really happy this is seeing the light of day.

**Steve983** · 10-25-2019

Maybe I'll get the vinyl since I already have the Live in Lyon cd. Not sure what to expect though....

**Gizmotron** · 10-25-2019

I am very pleased to hear of this (I saw an email earlier today). I ordered it!

I am pleased to see Oliver redevelop the ties to the rest of the band and push to get this material out there for the fans.

**rdclark** · 10-25-2019

Interested, but not enough to buy the Lyon show again or dust off my turntable. A digital release of the new tracks would be the fan-friendly move.

**bRETT** · 10-25-2019

Originally Posted by rdclark

Interested, but not enough to buy the Lyon show again or dust off my turntable. A digital release of the new tracks would be the fan-friendly move.

Since they're all under ten minutes, it should cost $5 to buy them all ($1.25 each, last I checked).

**BravadoNJ** · 10-25-2019

so are these tracks from the FFH sessions?
i thought David Benoit was stricken from Yes history when FFH was remixed with Trevor Horn's vocals-
and why weren't the tracks put on that version (with Trevor on vocals of course)
these songs might be better then the Heaven & Earth tracks.
will the 'Lyons' share (forgive the pun) of this package be remixed with Horn's voice?

**aith01** · 10-25-2019

Originally Posted by BravadoNJ

so are these tracks from the FFH sessions?
i thought David Benoit was stricken from Yes history when FFH was remixed with Trevor Horn's vocals-
and why weren't the tracks put on that version (with Trevor on vocals of course)
these songs might be better then the Heaven & Earth tracks.
will the 'Lyons' share (forgive the pun) of this package be remixed with Horn's voice?

It's all pretty much explained by Oliver in the press release.

These songs were unfinished at the time the FFH sessions were over. Oliver continued to work on them in the intervening years.

**zumacraig** · 10-25-2019

Originally Posted by BravadoNJ

so are these tracks from the FFH sessions?
i thought David Benoit was stricken from Yes history when FFH was remixed with Trevor Horn's vocals-
and why weren't the tracks put on that version (with Trevor on vocals of course)
these songs might be better then the Heaven & Earth tracks.
will the 'Lyons' share (forgive the pun) of this package be remixed with Horn's voice?

?...Fly From Here remixed with Horn's vocals??

**aith01** · 10-25-2019

Originally Posted by zumacraig

?...Fly From Here remixed with Horn's vocals??

The Fly From Here - Return Trip that was released last year, with Trevor Horn on vocals and some additional overdubs from Downes and Howe (I think).

It's actually a good listen. Different from the original FFH and worth having, IMO. I listen to both editions.

**dpt3** · 10-25-2019

I was kind of expecting that we'd eventually get a complete third alternate Fly from Here with Wakeman on keys, but I'm definitely looking forward to hearing these tracks!

**Dan Roth** · 10-25-2019

Originally Posted by BravadoNJ

so are these tracks from the FFH sessions?
i thought David Benoit was stricken from Yes history when FFH was remixed with Trevor Horn's vocals-

See Oliver's comments in Post #5

**Garyhead** · 10-25-2019

Im surprised that this came "out of the blue" without any Yuppet speculation / fore-knowledge....There should have AT LEAST been a 6-page Thread on this before it was announced......youse guys are slippin'!

**profusion** · 10-25-2019

Originally Posted by BravadoNJ

why weren't the tracks put on that version (with Trevor on vocals of course)

That's a good question. It may be that Horn rejected these tracks when he came on board to produce FFH, and thus they don't have any of his input to begin with. "Don't Take No For An Answer" seems to be the exception, since it didn't make the cut for the original album, either. It'd be interesting to know whether it had any work from Downes prior to the "Return Trip" release; i.e., whether it survived as a possibility longer than the other excluded tracks. The other possibility is that the band didn't want to use Oliver's songs (which three of these are) out of respect for him once he'd been booted from the project.

My impression is that if you take the four songs on this release and everything on FFH except the "FFH Suite" and "Life on a Film Set", that's the body of songs that Yes was working on prior to Horn taking on the production.

**dpt3** · 10-25-2019

According to the Wikipedia entry on Fly From Here: "The first recording session took place from 3 October to 12 November 2010 at SARM West Coast Studios in Los Angeles, California, and lasted around six weeks in total with Horn present for two of them[6] to produce "We Can Fly from Here". After Horn left to work on other commitments, the band recorded other songs for the album, namely "Into the Storm", "Hour of Need", "The Man You Always Wanted Me to Be",[8] "Don't Take No for an Answer", "Gift of Love" (a Squire/Wakeman co-write, related to "The Game" on Heaven & Earth),[15] and two Wakeman compositions, "To the Moment" and "Words on a Page".[16] (Wakeman had begun writing two more songs around this time, "From the Turn of a Card"[16] and "Credit Carnival",[17] that he used on his album Ravens and Lullabies with Gordon Giltrap.)"

Then Horn comes back, they get the idea of turning Fly from Here into a full suite, Wakeman gets pushed out in favor of Downes, and takes his songs with him to use on solo projects.

So what we are getting is basically the stuff Wakeman took when he left the band, apparently as further developed by him. In principle it seems like there ought to be early versions with Wakeman on keys of "We Can Fly from Here" and the non-suite tracks other than "Life on a Film Set". So it seems like you could get a complete alternate version of the album that way if you combined those two sources.

**sleeptalker** · 10-25-2019

Originally Posted by aith01

The Fly From Here - Return Trip that was released last year, with Trevor Horn on vocals and some additional overdubs from Downes and Howe (I think).

It's actually a good listen. Different from the original FFH and worth having, IMO. I listen to both editions.

Both versions have their merits are a worth having.