KEYSTUDIO

Recorded at The Office Studios, California, between 1995 and 1996, the Yes album 'Keystudio' was issued in 2001 as a compilation of bonus tracks already released inside the 1997 double-CD Live 'Keys To Ascension' (with a slight touch-up on the initial bars of the track 'Children Of The Light'). It consists of a highly ambitious, monumental work, lasting up to 75 minutes; an authentic masterpiece, almost perfect, showing at last what the Anderson-Squire-Howe-Wakeman- White 'line-up' can achieve, even in the studio (notwithstanding 'Going For The One'), the exceptional levels of that line-up can be compared to what is without doubt the best ever set up by Yes: Anderson-Squire-Howe-Wakeman-Bruford ('Fragile'; 'Close To The Edge'), better than their other line-ups, however good, of: Anderson-Squire-Howe-Moraz-White ('Relayer') and: Anderson-Squire-Howe-Kaye-Bruford ('The Yes Album'). There are seven tracks -each one seeming better than the other - ('Foot Prints';'Be The One'; 'Mind Drive'; 'Bring Me To The Power'; 'Sign Language'; 'That,That Is'; 'Children Of The Light'), one charming atmosphere leading to another. Once again the typical, unique merits and qualities of this historic English band are displayed and confirmed: width and complexity of composition, stylistic subtleties and melodic sensitivity (texts included), greatly valuable technical importance and extremely careful virtuosity; Jon Anderson's voice, epic, cosmic, delicate and always sweet, yet at the same time manly and re- assuring; Chris Squire's Rickenbecker Bass (one of the most exceptional creations in the whole contemporary music scene) endowed with a titanic, highly powerful sound, but also with an ever-varied, versatile, flexible phrasing; the magic, now archaizing now futuristic, of Steve Howe's electro-acustic guitar;the classic sound of Rick Wakeman's impressing and architectural keyboard, Alan White's vigorous and muscular drumming (but not lacking in syncopated rhythm and offbeat). It is particulary with this work, Keystudio (but also the excellent and recently released 'The Ladder'-1999 and 'Magnification'-2001 should not be forgotten, as well as the extraordinary 2002 DVD 'Symphonic Live'), that the Yes have proved yet again to be at the top of the international music world and, in my opinion, - with the King Crimson as their only possible rivals - the most serious, skillfull and impressive band in the whole "progressive" scene from the end of the Sixties up to now.