Talk, the 14th studio album by prog-rock pioneers Yes, was initially released on March 21, 1994, and is often referred to as the great ‘lost’ Yes album. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, Spirit of Unicorn Music will reissue the album as a four-CD Deluxe Edition featuring bonus studio material and a previously unreleased live show from New York, new interview with the principal players by Jerry Ewing, a double-LP limited edition white vinyl set, and a single CD.
After the stellar success of their 1983 album 90125 and the slightly troubled birth of its follow-up Big Generator in 1987, which reached the top 20 on both sides of the Atlantic, Yes splintered once more. There was talk of getting a new singer, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson was one name bandied around, as were Kansas singer Steve Walsh, Billy Sherwood of World Trade, and even “C’est La Vie” singer Robbie Nevil.
Eight of the band's members of Yes reunited for 1991’s Union album and a tour to follow. From those eight, a new Yes emerged: Jon Anderson, Trevor Rabin, Chris Squire, Alan White, and Rick Wakeman. Due to managerial reasons, Wakeman could not participate, so enter Tony Kaye on keyboards once more and the 90125 line up was back together. Yes also had a new label, Victory Records, headed up by the former Atlantic Records executive Phil Carson, who had personally bankrolled the “Cinema/90125” sessions.
The music and lyrics for Talk were written mainly by Rabin and Jon Anderson, and Anderson is adamant that it is his favorite album from the Rabin era of the band, “It was just a beautiful time for me and Trev… it was a very harmonious experience for me.”
Talk was also one of the first albums to be recorded and edited entirely digitally, without using traditional audio tape. It was a groundbreaking move at the time, but the technology, as advanced as it was, was not without its problems. In January 1994, Northridge in the San Fernando Valley in California was hit by an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the Richter Scale, and production had to be halted as the early Apple Mac computers they were working on were being affected by the tremors. To put the technology into context now, in its unedited form, Talk took up 34GB of memory, which today could be transferred via a flash drive in seconds.
Talk was preceded by the release of the opening track, the uplifting “The Calling”, which started to make inroads on US Radio and was followed by “Walls”, which was co-written by Roger Hodgson, from his time working with Rabin in 1990. However, disaster loomed as Victory Music, the original label, went bankrupt shortly after the album’s release, and the album was left to wither and die.
Nevertheless, Yes kicked off their US tour for Talk that June and played 77 shows in the US, Canada, South America and Japan. Sadly, the tour never got to Europe or the band’s homeland, which is a source of regret to both Rabin and Anderson. Footage of the show in Santiago, Chile, is available online and shows a band playing at their peak. “My regret is I wish there was a live album,” says Rabin. “I wish we recorded some shows properly, it’s just a board mix….but you can feel the energy from it.”
The Talk tour ended at Hiroshima’s Kousei Nenkin Kaikan on October 11, 1994. It would be the last time Trevor Rabin would play with as a full-time member of Yes.
Talk could be described as the great ‘lost’ YES album and is probably the most cohesive of the Rabin-era YES albums in sound, and the one closest to the classic Yes sound of the 70s, exemplified by the stunning fifteen-minute album closer “Endless Dream.” “When I listen to ‘Endless Dream’ it’s such a great piece of music,” Anderson enthuses today. “It’s one of the great Yes pieces of music that not many people know. It’s beautiful. And ‘The Calling,’ I love it.”
For more information, visit yesworld.com.
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