Arc Of Life, new band featuring Davison, Schellen, Sherwood, Kerzner and Haun

[Mstove]

I like this one quite a bit.

[noisynoise]

The band sounds great on this one, although I'd like to add a double order of Squids, please!

[bondegezou]

This song *to me* suggests what we might reasonably expect to hear from the new Yes album.

I think it suggests 40% of what we might hear from the new Yes album. As far as we expect or can tell, Yes are approaching the writing of their new album fairly democratically, so there's 5 of them and I expect all 5 of them to get writing credits. Arc of Life was mainly written by Sherwood/Davison and they represent 2/5 of Yes. Ergo, 40%.

But that could be more or less true. Arc of Life is not Yes, so Sherwood/Davison may be deliberately doing different things in the band than what they'd do in Yes (just as Howe's writing on the reunion Asia albums was rather different to his contributions to contemporary Yes albums). We don't know where the balance of power or of productivity is in the writing of the new Yes album. I would guess that Howe is effectively in charge, so we may see him writing more of the next album than he did on H&E or FfH. There have been rumours that they'll use some Chris Squire ideas/demos, so maybe Sherwood/Davison are only 2/6 of the writers on the album, not 2/5. Downes was the main composer on FfH, but only had one credit on H&E, so should we expect lots or little of him? So the new Yes album could end up more like a cross between Love is and Halcyon Hymns!

One thing I like about Yes is that they are relatively democratic when it comes to making albums, which makes things less predictable. Jethro Tull albums are written by Ian Anderson. King Crimson albums are written by different band members, but everyone knows Fripp is in charge. A new Yes album: six different names could plausibly be in those songwriting credits and I really don't know who will predominate.

Henry

[Paulrus]

The band sounds great on this one, although I'd like to add a double order of Squids, please!

Was there keys on that?

IMO it was better, but still somewhat meh. As in, don't ask me to recite a melody or groove from it an hour from now. The best thing about it was Jimmy Haun's solo.

[Steve983]

Just sounds like another Sherwood project to me, not interested sadly.

Sent from my SM-T290 using Tapatalk

[bondegezou]

Was there keys on that?

IMO it was better, but still somewhat meh. As in, don't ask me to recite a melody or groove from it an hour from now. The best thing about it was Jimmy Haun's solo.

Definitely nice to hear more opportunity for Haun to stretch out, and definitely would be nice to have more opportunity for Squids to stretch out. Sensible second choice of song to release to show some breadth to the band.

Henry

[Sean]

I thought the 12 string solo was a nod to "Awaken" in a couple spots. Maybe not deliberately, but it reminded me of it.

[bondegezou]

Yes Music Podcast have a new interview with Sherwood about Arc of Life: https://yesmusicpodcast.com/billy-sh...l-kind-of-466/

The key point for me is that Billy mentions Derek Shulman being involved, advising him on the production. This explains everything. The decision to launch with "You Make It Real", that screams Shulman to me.

Henry

[moecurlythanu]

Yes Music Podcast have a new interview with Sherwood about Arc of Life: https://yesmusicpodcast.com/billy-sh...l-kind-of-466/

The key point for me is that Billy mentions Derek Shulman being involved, advising him on the production. This explains everything. The decision to launch with "You Make It Real", that screams Shulman to me.

Henry

They should have led with "The Advent Of Panurge."

[ScottAM]

I think it suggests 40% of what we might hear from the new Yes album. As far as we expect or can tell, Yes are approaching the writing of their new album fairly democratically, so there's 5 of them and I expect all 5 of them to get writing credits. Arc of Life was mainly written by Sherwood/Davison and they represent 2/5 of Yes. Ergo, 40%.

Henry

I think it was on Sean's interview with Alan White that we heard most of the upcoming Yes album will be written by Howe/Davison.

[luvyesmusic]

I think it was on Sean's interview with Alan White that we heard most of the upcoming Yes album will be written by Howe/Davison.

With Steve taking over lead vocals for YES, with Jon singing backing vocals, and playing bass. ;-)

I met Derek years ago when he showed up to a YOSO gig, and Billy told me who he was and asked if I wanted to meet him. I knew he was with Frontiers, but being roughly the same age as Billy ( all my brothers are younger, I lived overseas a lot, my dad and mom was not musically hip till he started working with Cat Steven's brother in law- they had no kids so were over the house a lot, and being overseas, I had no cool older Uncle with a record collection ), Gentle Giant was a bit before my time. However, I had picked up the late, other fan of all things YES, and much more, Malcolm Birkett from the airport earlier, and I thought it would be a great pairing to get those two together. They talked for quite a bit, Derek pulls out his phone and plays his first hit Kites. I enjoyed watching and listening to those two literally go back to younger days and past history.

Later, I am, again, along for the ride, hanging out with Malcolm, Tony Kaye my favorite YES-man of all time with a ton of stories and history and Bobby Kimble to the wee hours of the morning. Tony is STILL the man. Great time. Very happy that Billy got not only Tony to come back for a recent tour, but got Jay Schellen involved, too. Billy's a great guy.

[Sean]

This album has a couple ten minute tunes on it I think fans of 90s Yes & Circa will find appealing. The shorter tunes all have some unique twists too.

[bondegezou]

This album has a couple ten minute tunes on it I think fans of 90s Yes & Circa will find appealing. The shorter tunes all have some unique twists too.

The '90s is probably the most diverse decade for Yes music. From Union to Talk to Keys to Ascension 2 to Open Your Eyes... ergo, I question whether there is such a thing as a fan of '90s Yes! ;-)

Henry

[calyx]

The '90s is probably the most diverse decade for Yes music. From Union to Talk to Keys to Ascension 2 to Open Your Eyes... ergo, I question whether there is such a thing as a fan of '90s Yes! ;-)

I would say there was an underlying trend of trying (and often failing) to find a midde ground between 1970s and 1980s Yes, often swinging between the two extremes, but albums like "Talk" (YesWest bringing epic prog back into the mix) and "The Ladder" (the real follow-up to "Keys To Ascension", imho, with (most of) "classic Yes" doing the opposite) for me define what that decade was about for Yes.

[JKL2000]

With Steve taking over lead vocals for YES, with Jon singing backing vocals, and playing bass. ;-)

I met Derek years ago when he showed up to a YOSO gig, and Billy told me who he was and asked if I wanted to meet him. I knew he was with Frontiers, but being roughly the same age as Billy ( all my brothers are younger, I lived overseas a lot, my dad and mom was not musically hip till he started working with Cat Steven's brother in law- they had no kids so were over the house a lot, and being overseas, I had no cool older Uncle with a record collection ), Gentle Giant was a bit before my time. However, I had picked up the late, other fan of all things YES, and much more, Malcolm Birkett from the airport earlier, and I thought it would be a great pairing to get those two together. They talked for quite a bit, Derek pulls out his phone and plays his first hit Kites. I enjoyed watching and listening to those two literally go back to younger days and past history.

Later, I am, again, along for the ride, hanging out with Malcolm, Tony Kaye my favorite YES-man of all time with a ton of stories and history and Bobby Kimble to the wee hours of the morning. Tony is STILL the man. Great time. Very happy that Billy got not only Tony to come back for a recent tour, but got Jay Schellen involved, too. Billy's a great guy.

^Are you quoting someone else here, or are these your own reminiscences?

[bondegezou]

I would say there was an underlying trend of trying (and often failing) to find a midde ground between 1970s and 1980s Yes, often swinging between the two extremes, but albums like "Talk" (YesWest bringing epic prog back into the mix) and "The Ladder" (the real follow-up to "Keys To Ascension", imho, with (most of) "classic Yes" doing the opposite) for me define what that decade was about for Yes.

Yes, I think that's true. You can define a thread going through the decade, although it seems a thin one to me. "Endless Dream" and "Homeworld" do have some things in common... but not that much. What I hear is a series of attempts to re-invent what Yes is, but each is a dead end and gets abandoned:

* an Anderson/Elias vision on Union, mixed up in a shit load of conflicts and record company nonsense -- abandoned
* there's the Rabin-led vision, but with Anderson, on Talk -- abandoned; maybe ARW would've picked it up had they got it together more, maybe "Fragile" comes from the same place
* Open Your Eyes is a Sherwood-led vision -- generally only seen since on spin-off projects, like CIRCA:

There is greater continuity through the other albums, some re-kindling of the '70s writing teams, so a renewed Anderson/Squire writing partnership (e.g. "Be the One") and a renewed Anderson/Howe writing partnership (e.g. "Bring Me to the Power" -- albeit a less close relationship than in the '70s), and some integration of other approaches (the band walk back from OYE, but Sherwood is contributing significantly on The Ladder). There's even some newer approaches, like Howe/Wakeman writing together ("Lifeline", "Sign Language") or Khoroshev's contributions. But by the time Wakeman is out of the band again, Sherwood is out of the band, Khoroshev is out of the band, it feels like any new approaches are again dead ends.

For me, there's a late '90s/early '00s period with KtA, KtA2, The Ladder and Magnification that are all kind of from the same place, but most of the decade is chaos and cul-de-sacs.

Henry

[luvyesmusic]

^Are you quoting someone else here, or are these your own reminiscences?

I've had a fantastic time and made many friends being a fan of all things YES--related.

Every day is a new opportunity for adventures and opporunities to engage with new folks, whatever, or whoever they may be, what they do for a living, etc., and share a bit of our experiences, gain insight, and learn something new every single day, during this way too short life.

Waiting for the world/my world to open up, again.

[yodathedog]

I've had a fantastic time and made many friends being a fan of all things YES--related.

Every day is a new opportunity for adventures and opporunities to engage with new folks, whatever, or whoever they may be, what they do for a living, etc., and share a bit of our experiences, gain insight, and learn something new every single day, during this way too short life.

Waiting for the world/my world to open up, again.

Huh?

[bondegezou]

^ They're his own reminiscences.

Henry

[JKL2000]

^ They're his own reminiscences.

Henry

Thanks - I had to read a bit further back to find who "Derek" referred to. I thought maybe Shulman. Still a little confused though!

[calyx]

Yes, I think that's true. You can define a thread going through the decade, although it seems a thin one to me. "Endless Dream" and "Homeworld" do have some things in common... but not that much. What I hear is a series of attempts to re-invent what Yes is, but each is a dead end and gets abandoned:

* an Anderson/Elias vision on Union, mixed up in a shit load of conflicts and record company nonsense -- abandoned
* there's the Rabin-led vision, but with Anderson, on Talk -- abandoned; maybe ARW would've picked it up had they got it together more, maybe "Fragile" comes from the same place
* Open Your Eyes is a Sherwood-led vision -- generally only seen since on spin-off projects, like CIRCA:

I would mostly agree with the above, except for "Open Your Eyes". To me, it's simply not a Yes album, it's a Squire/Sherwood project lazily disguised as a Yes album, by way of Jon's vocals and a smattering of Howe's guitars, and the Roger Dean logo. Unlike the others mentioned above, it makes no real attempt to bridge the gap between one concept of Yes and another. There's simply little or nothing in it to please fans of Yes's 1970-77 output (unless, of course, you happen to like every single configuration of Yes).

I find (the best of) CIRCA: a better representation of Sherwood doing Yes-type music.

[bondegezou]

I would mostly agree with the above, except for "Open Your Eyes". To me, it's simply not a Yes album, it's a Squire/Sherwood project lazily disguised as a Yes album, by way of Jon's vocals and a smattering of Howe's guitars, and the Roger Dean logo. Unlike the others mentioned above, it makes no real attempt to bridge the gap between one concept of Yes and another. There's simply little or nothing in it to please fans of Yes's 1970-77 output (unless, of course, you happen to like every single configuration of Yes).

I understand what you mean, but, for better or worse... mainly worse, much worse... it's the album that the band chose to put out. It is an outlier among Yes albums, but I think it was an honest, if unsuccessful, attempt to offer a concept of Yes. Something like A is an Ian Anderson solo album simply re-badged as Jethro Tull. However, all but 2 songs on Open Your Eyes were created to be on a Yes album.

I find (the best of) CIRCA: a better representation of Sherwood doing Yes-type music.

Agreed.

Henry

[calyx]

I understand what you mean, but, for better or worse... mainly worse, much worse... it's the album that the band chose to put out. It is an outlier among Yes albums, but I think it was an honest, if unsuccessful, attempt to offer a concept of Yes. Something like A is an Ian Anderson solo album simply re-badged as Jethro Tull. However, all but 2 songs on Open Your Eyes were created to be on a Yes album.

Well, even trying to define what "the band" was is tricky. The nature of the band changed as "Open Your Eyes" came about. It can be argued tat "Open Your Eyes", i.e. a side project whereby Anderson, disappointed with the (mostly financial) outcome of the "KTA" era, seized the opportunity of getting some Sherwood/Squire material into the next Yes album, initially a couple of tracks to be added to the studio half of "KTA 2" (that's the "Know" project). While this is being done, Yes change management and Wakeman leaves, while Howe is barely involved in the new studios tracks at this point. A few weeks before that, Yes was still the classic line-up and the new album was going to be, in some form, the newer "KTE" studio tracks. In my view, "Open Your Eyes" amounted to a coup d'Etat that destroyed the "KTA" line-up both personally, with Wakeman and almost Howe leaving, and musically, with the Howe/Wakeman part of classic Yes barely represented at all. It's the most extreme case of "a Yes" not even trying to be Yes, with the smallest amount of instrumental music ever.

Ultimately, what resulted was an album that is of nearly no interest to many (including me), but a solid live line-up that functioned relatively well for the next three years, even managing to make an abum "the old way", with collective writing sessions and proper pre-production rehearsals. I'm not the biggest fan of "The Ladder", but its greatest quality to my ears is that it does sound and feel like the work of a band. Not many latter-day Yes albums do.

[malgeo]

"KTE"

Keys to Extinction.

[calyx]

Keys to Extinction.

That was funny, but I couldn't NOT change it back to "KTA" in my post. Felt a bit stupid.