Yes

The Steven Wilson Remixes WARNER MUSIC

Career-highlight five-album run from the early 70s just got ‘better’. Maybe just different.

With two versions of Yes currently celebrating their 50th anniversary by bumping heads in rather undignified fashion, these reissues are a timely reminder of the one Yes that truly matters: the Yes that released five breathtaking albums between February 1971 and November 1974; the Yes of The Yes Album, Fragile, Close To The Edge, Relayer and Tales From Topographic Oceans. The box set collects Steven Wilson’s remixes of those albums on vinyl for the first time.

Words like ‘transparency’ and ‘depth’ tend to be bandied around with infuriating abandon when it comes to Wilson’s remix work, and yes, Chris Squire’s bass does sound a little more gnarly than on the original records. But unlike Wilson’s handling of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung, where the remix was transformative, this isn’t a rescue job, and these albums didn’t need rescuing. Eddie Offord’s original production work with Yes was near-faultless, highlighted by an instrumental clarity that belied brilliantly the complexity of the material.

Audiophiles will bicker long into perpetuity about whether releasing vinyl versions of albums sourced from hi-res 24/96 digital files means the whole business is inherently hokum, and whether or not you’re better off avoiding any possible surface noise by simply sticking to the DVD-A and Blu-ray versions. They’ll squabble over whether Wilson’s remix of Fragile is better than the 2016 pressing of the same album (also released by Rhino), or the Analogue Productions reissue from a decade earlier, or the original release from 1971. They’ll argue about the lack of dynamics and the supposed sterility of modern mixes. And it’s utter madness. If you’re concentrating that hard on the sound, you’re probably not really listening to the music.

But if you’re a completist, or if you don’t own these albums already, or even if you fancy dropping 100 quid on something to enliven dinner party discussion, then this box set is much more than just the latest incarnation of a slowly evolving series of near-identical, wallet-crippling releases; it’s absolutely vital. The five-album run from The Yes Album to Relayer is one of rock’s greatest. This is music that is aspirational, inspirational and often transcendent. It’s music that is beautiful, and brave, and occasionally violent. It’s music born of a giddy spirit of adventure, played by musicians operating at the absolute peak of their powers. And it’s utterly dazzling from start to finish.