TWELVE INCHES ON TAPE

Yes

Symphonic Prog

2.91 | 27 ratings

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patrickq
Prog Reviewer

It finally occurred to me that I could actually listen to my copy of Twelve Inches on Tape, even though it is, as the title says, on tape: my car has a cassette player.

From the 12-inch (dance) single of Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart," Twelve Inches on Tape includes the "Red and Blue Mix" of "Owner," and from the the 12-inch single of "Leave It," the tape includes the "Hello, Goodbye Mix" and the single edit (called "Leave It (Remix)" here). The last track on Twelve Inches on Tape is the album version of "Owner of a Lonely Heart."

The "Leave It" single mix is interesting, although it doesn't vary much from the album version, so the dance mixes are the attraction here. Neither is a run-of-the-mill 1980s "extended dance mix;" both are recreations of the songs, apparently achieved mainly through playing samples from the originals on a Fairlight synthesizer over a dance beat similar to the original song. The artist of the "Red and Blue Mix" is really not Yes, but engineer Gary Langan and programmer Jonathan Jeczalik, whose work on this mix led to their creation of the avant-garde ensemble the Art of Noise. (Similarly, Langan, Stephen Lipson, Stewart Bruce, and Chris Squire (and probably Jeczalik, though uncredited), are the parties responsible for the "Hello, Goodbye Mix.")

Thus I judge Twelve Inches on Tape not as Yes music, but as sample-based dance music. As such, it is good but not outlandishly so; this may be partly because the creativity of Langan, Jeczalik, and company was restricted by the fact that these tracks were released under another the name of another artist (Yes). While later artists, including the Art of Noise, would take sample-based music to new heights, Twelve Inches on Tape still has historical value as an early work in that genre.

(For what it's worth, neither "Leave It (Hello, Goodbye Mix)" nor "Owner of a Lonely Heart (Red and Blue Mix)" are currently in print, as far as I know. A mix of "Owner" similar to the "Red and Blue" appears on the 2004 Rhino remaster of 90125, as does the single edit of "Leave It.")

patrickq | 3/5 | 2019-3-12

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