The Yes year: looking back to 2019 and forward to 2020

If there's been a race between Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Wakeman and the Yes with Howe, White and Downes to release a new album -- and it's certainly been a marathon rather than a sprint -- then the unexpected winner this year was the Oliver Wakeman/Benoît David line-up. From a Page came out of the blue to positive reviews. A delightful surprise and my highlight of the Yes year.

While From a Page made the biggest splash in Yes fan circles, we should remember that the albums that sell well are often not the ones Yes fans pay attention to. From a Page did do well in sales, particularly given its limited release. It made #23 in the UK Rock chart, but selling better was Rick Wakeman's Christmas Portraits, which made #82 in the main UK top 100. Better than both of those were two Trevor Horn productions (he performs on both too). Renato Zero's Zero il Folle made #1 in Italy and was the 31st best-selling album of the year in the country. But the biggest Yes-related release of the year was You're in My Heart by Rod Stewart with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, which went #1 in the UK and Ireland, and made the top 40 in Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Portugal too. It was the 10th best-selling album of the year in the UK.

I can't decide my personal favourite album of the year, but I can tell you my favourite Yes-related song. That's “Scavengers” from the first In Continuum album. A great riff, great tune, provocative lyrics and fantastic drumming by Marco Minnemann. Davison guests providing some beautiful backing vocals.

Looking ahead, there is much excitement, and more than a little trepidation, about Yes playing all of Relayer in 2020. There are also indications that the band will record a new album, although there have been similar indications for some years and we're still waiting. ARW were inactive in 2019. While Wakeman talked of touring resuming in 2020, and maybe a new album, that talk has ended and the band appears to be on hold, at best. Finished, at worst.

From a Page brought attention to Wakeman junior's work. If you've enjoyed his work, 2020 begins well as he appears on two albums out shortly: John Holden's sophomore release Rise and Fall; and the David Cross & Peter Banks album Crossover. I've heard previews of both and they're both good. The latter is (sadly) the last album of new material by Peter Banks from his estate, based on an improv session in 2010 by former King Crimson violinist David Cross and Pete on guitar, augmented subsequently by a multitude of Yes (O Wakeman, Sherwood, Kaye, Downes, Schellen, Raine-Reusch) and King Crimson (Mastelotto, Stacey) names.

Poll: What was the best Yes-related album of the second half of 2018?

55 of you voted and the results were:

1. various artists: A Life in Yes: The Chris Squire Tribute (w/ Sherwood, Kaye, Moraz, Davison):  38% (21 votes)
2. Peter Banks's Harmony in Diversity: The Complete Recordings: 24% (13 votes)
3. Jason Becker: Triumphant Hearts (w/ Rabin):  11% (6 votes)
4. Rick Wakeman: Piano Odyssey:  9% (5 votes)
5= Dave Kerzner & Sonic Elements: Yesterday and Today: A 50th Anniversary Tribute to Yes (w/ Sherwood, Kaye, Downes, Davison): 7% (4 votes)
5= William Shatner: Shatner Claus: The Christmas Album (w/ R Wakeman) 7% (4 votes)
7. other: 4% (2 votes)
8. Light Freedom Revival: Truthonomy (w/ Sherwood, O Wakeman) 0% (0 votes)

Billy Sherwood's tribute to his belated mentor easily won, with the comprehensive Harmony in Diversity set with Pete Banks second. I actually preferred the Sonic Elements Yes tribute, but it struggled to get votes.

Neither of the 2 other votes said who they were voting for. It may have been Funky Monkey's Undecover (w/ Banks), which I mistakenly omitted from the poll.

Interview with Andrew Booker of Peter Banks's Harmony in Diversity, Tim Bowness and Sanguine Hum

Drummer Andrew Booker was one third of Harmony in Diversity with Peter Banks and bassist Nick Cottam. He currently plays in Tim Bowness's solo band and on associated projects, and has also worked with Sanguine Hum. Andrew kindly answered some questions for me about Harmony in Diversity's The Complete Recordings and some of his other work. Background on The Complete Recordings can be read on the news site here and there's a video sampler of the album by Andrew here.

How did you and Nick Cottam come to meet Pete? And how did the idea for the trio with him develop?

We all originally met in 1996. I met Peter and Nick independently after making my Ahead mini-album. The three of us met up for a jam with Gerard Johnson (St Etienne keyboardist) towards the end of that year, but nothing else happened between the three of us together until summer 2004. I had been in bands with Nick the whole time, and he and I had formed a bass and drums duo called Pulse Engine. I bumped into Peter at the Royal Festival Hall, and invited him to a Pulse Engine gig the following week. I knew he’d like it, and I suspected this might be a good way into working with him. Up until then I’d only ever listened to records and drunk brandy in his living room or gone to gigs with him, and had then lost touch with him completely for about three years. He was very impressed with Pulse Engine, and we were all keen for him to start adding some guitar. We invited him to join us for our next gig, and that was the beginning.

We now have this 6 CD release imminent: can you talk through what the different sessions were that led to this material?

The entire package is a condensation of everything we recorded, at least everything that we can reasonably access without spending a lot of money recovering old ADAT tapes that we are sure have nothing useful on them, i.e. they are of attempts to rehearse things, rather than improvise. The sessions were just our normal band activities. In the early days we were trying to learn Pulse Engine material, then we set about improvising, interspersed with the occasional attempt to learn a couple of Peter’s things (like "Knights", from his Two Sides album). We seldom did anything without recording it. Even if we weren’t trying to make an album, it was always good to record just to capture good ideas to develop later, plus recording was easy because I was mostly using electronic drums. We used ADAT tapes for multitrack some of the time, but it was quite cumbersome to do so, so we often just put stuff down onto minidiscs.

CD 1—Struggles Discontinued: where do these come from?

There’s quite a mixture on here. It was the last disc to be made, and only came about because we had all sorts of spare bits and offcuts. Some of it comes from jams recorded to ADAT, where I took the best bits of Peter’s playing (actually most of it) and either looped up drums and bass, or recorded new parts entirely. That makes this record something of an odd-one-out in the set as it’s the only one where we recorded new parts (except for some vocal bits I added to Try Again). Besides the ADAT material, there are some rearrangements of live sections that didn’t make it onto Hitting The Fans [Live], again with new bass and drum parts. Plus there’s a duo piece with a very long and ridiculous title ("On the 6th Attempt…") that Peter and I made after compiling What Is This? onto which I got Nick to add some bass. In a couple of cases I used drum parts that I had leftover from other things. For example, the freeform drumming on the two "Harmogeny" pieces is actually a spare take from one of my youtube videos called "Free As In Fall".

CD 2—What is This? I understand there are 2005 sessions with just you and Banks. There was talk of splitting the band into a set of three duos...?

Yep, What Is This? is the duo album I made with Peter. The aim was to release What Is This? at the time. I’m not sure why we didn’t, but it’s likely to have been a combination of (a) Peter wanting to add more guitar parts to it, (b) trying to find a decent label via which to release it, which was shelved by (c) Nick enrolling us into the 3-Of-The-Essence gigs with The David Cross Band and Nick May’s Whimwise.

I did find more duo recordings from later in the year after we’d put the album together. The one good piece I found is on Struggles Discontinued, as is the one to which Nick added a bass part. It has some pretty electric playing on it by Peter. The rest seems to be just rehearsing stuff, and didn’t having anything like the pizazz.

CD4—Try Again: where do these come from?

Most of it comes from minidiscs from one session on 28 September 2004. I’ve long forgotten it of course, but it seems to have been a good evening. It makes up the bulk of this album, plus there’s something on Trying from that session as well ["Sods at Odds"]. I say a good one, the trouble was that most of the material needed some serious editing to turn it into music. Trying was an album we had to make fairly quickly in time to sell at the 3-Of-The-Essence gigs, therefore any candidate material had to have as few duff sections as possible. The pieces on Try Again were a lot of work, but worth it I think. There’s a lot of variety on there, and they show that we were quite an inventive unit.

CD5—Hitting the Fans (Live): Is this still you or over to Speight?

All me, it’s stuff from the first four trio gigs, namely Peter’s guest appearance with Pulse Engine in October 2004, the gig at the Klinker on 3 June 2005, and the first two 3-Of-The-Essence gigs in March 2006. Sadly the third wasn’t recorded, a shame because it was my favourite by a long way. Although it looks like we’re billing this as the (only) live disc in the set, there’s also live material on Struggles Discontinued (tracks 2 and 6) and Trying (track 5 plus the bonus track 6), and Nick made Spontaneous Creation largely out of live recordings from the David Speight era.

You were re-visiting material that you hadn't heard for some years. What were your feelings on coming back to it?

Generally good ones, I’m happy to say. For me and Nick, a significant element of the Pulse Engine workflow had been capturing jams onto tape, and then putting the tapes away. We felt that music preserved in this way had a magical wine-like property of maturing, as if we would enjoy it more the longer we left it. That ethos definitely carried over into Harmony In Diversity. I had put all my minidiscs in a box and left them there, and for many years after my swift departure I had no intention of ever going back to them. Having eventually dug the discs out again to make this record, I definitely feel a lot more positive about the material than I did at the time, or for years afterwards. At least from the studio sessions, anyway! Once I’d got past all the boring technical stuff, I started to really enjoy working on the Try Again material and turn it into end results that I can listen to now with pleasure and some fondness for that period. As for Struggles Discontinued, I really love it and had great time putting it together. Whereas working through the originals for Trying Again required diligence, the ADAT-sourced material for Struggles Discontinued meant I could be a lot more brutal with it. That was gratifying in a different way: the luxury of being able to use only the best of what we recorded. Anything crap was cut. Anything low-yield I probably also cut.

What did you do to the material to turn it into a release? How much is this edited or processed compared to the original recordings?

A lot. The only thing we left completely alone was Trying (besides the remaster, though even then it gets a bonus track). I rebuilt What Is This? Completely. The pieces are (mostly) composed from the same recorded sections but I did all the edits again, being a bit better at it these days than I was then. Track 4 is a new version, it has a section that is not in the original, and vice versa. Nick’s Spontaneous Creation album was a lot of work for him at time, even then he went back and made several updates for this release. For the rest: extensive listening back through old material and editing down into some semblance of musical form. I didn’t really use too many effects or treatment, at least not with with later efforts, though the opening to Try Again ("Prelusion") is a bit of a knob-twiddler. I have, I’m not ashamed to say, allowed myself some hefty reams of artistic license in doubling up and looping bits where the source material was stereo minidisc, to thicken the sound or improve the structure. I genuinely think Peter would have liked the result. I still remember him raving about the first Fatboy Slim and DJ Shadow albums at the time. I sort of think of Try Again as HiD does Fatboy Slim. When it came to the ADAT-based stuff on Struggles Discontinued, I kept a lot of guitar soloing, kept a few good bass and drum loops to build up the form and slung out the rest. I applied new drum parts liberally, and even a few synth embellishments here and there, whatever helped make another record that I would want to listen to.

You joined Sanguine Hum for their second studio album, The Weight of the World. How did you get involved with the band, and can you talk about your role in the band?

Their original drummer Paul Mallyon left, and Carl Glover suggested they try me. Carl knew me from the No-Man live band (he also did the graphic design for the HiD Complete Recordings). The Hummies found an old web page, probably a decade old now, where I’d posted some recordings of my polyrhythmic practice patterns, mixing 3s and 5s, or 3s and 7s and so on, all in a way that was right up their alley, so they sensed I’d be a good fit. I got them to send me some songs to learn, which was a week’s work in just figuring out the arrangements on paper, never mind learning how to play the stuff. Then we met up, and got on really well. They immediately enlisted me for their warm-up gig in London and then the RoSfest date. I saw my role as helping their band continue and helping them realise their vision, something they had in spades by the way: they had at least three albums demoed. That was a major attraction for me: being able to muscle-up on some nice difficult drumming without having to agonise for months on end over collaborative songwriting. Their music seemed intensely prepared, yet I was more-or-less free to play how I saw fit - they didn’t expect me to exactly mimic what Paul had done. There were a few bits of their catalogue where I had to toe the line, for example "Diving Bell". I probably practiced that song more than any other Hum piece. After the RoSfest date, then came the Weight Of The World recording. Matt Baber (keyboardist) had specced out the drum parts, so I was following his guidance, sometimes doing pretty much exactly what he wanted (for example as on "From The Ground Up"), otherwise coming up with what I felt sounded good. The clattering roto-tom on "System For Solution" was my shout, as were "In Code" and "Day Of Release". I absolutely loved playing those two things live. "Day Of Release" was powerful but with a really relaxed groove that was a great way to start a live set. "In Code" was very complicated, full of twists and turns and very little repetition, yet once I knew my way around that piece I never got lost in it. Much easier than playing 512 bars of the same thing.

You are not on the next Sanguine Hum album, but are there plans for you to be involved again in the future?

I don’t know of any plans. Then again I’m not really sure what the band will do next. I know in theory there is a final installment to their epic Buttered Cat series. If they approached me again I would be keen, but I have no expectations of that happening. While they’ve got Paul back in the frame, they don’t need me. I still keep in touch with Matt, though. He is prolific in his own solo work, and continues to send me awesome things. It was nice to involve him in the Piko Cloud Booker live show last year with his piano and electronics set.

Another recent album you played on that got strong reviews was Tim Bowness' Lost in the Ghost Light. Can you talk about that session? Did you have much leeway in what you played?

So, this is the third of three solo Tim albums that I’ve been on, and comes in at #2 in the pecking order of how much I enjoyed being involved! #1 was the album before it, Stupid Things That Mean The World, and as with that one, I recorded all my drum parts in my practice room in South Woodford. As far as I could tell, the bulk of the source material for LITGL had come from Stephen Bennett, and was mostly a body of work I already knew, because he had intended it for another Henry Fool album. Also for the most part he was the one soliciting me for drum parts. I recorded lots of drums for several pieces, but in many cases either the material was dropped, or I was dropped. In the end I’m only on four things, and two of those were from the STTMTW sessions ("Nowhere Good To Go" and "Kill The Pain"). I like to feel that I have leeway with Tim, I did on STTMTW at any rate, but on this record I probably didn’t. I either persevered with my ideas (e.g. on "You Wanted To Be Seen") or gave up ("You’ll Be The Silence", which went to Hux Nettermalm). For "Nowhere Good To Go", which I think was the first thing I recorded for the previous album, I just played what I thought fitted the demo, and it sounded really nice just with Stephen’s keyboards and no orchestral overlays. The toms outro came instinctively. I like how the drums can enhance the atmosphere of a piece a great deal by shutting up with all the cymbals and swishiness, and giving the more subtle elements of other instruments some space. For "Kill The Pain", I dug out my Bill Bruford Discipline-era influence and went for the kind of rototom clatter that I used to love messing about with, playing a drum on all four limbs, and tuned the rototoms and the snare pretty much to the key of the song. Pity we’ve never played it live, it would be terrific. For the last track, "Distant Summers", Stephen had come up with the original song structure, and said he wanted it in the style of "The Great Electric Teenage Dream" from STTMTW. I banged away at various takes, handed over something respectable, and Tim just couldn’t get into the song at all. So he re-assembled it as a jazz piece with some demo GarageBand drums and got Ian Anderson to do a flute solo in the middle. I then had a really nice time putting some jazz drumming onto it. My original takes were therefore now spare. They happened to be exactly the tempo and feel (once shifted by a beat or so) of "Everything Ends In Nothing" (from Struggles Discontinued). So on they went.

Can I jump back to another favourite of mine, Henry Fool's Men Singing? How was this album made?

One day of improvised ensemble playing, and about 8 years of editing and adding of auxiliary bits and pieces. A lot in common with The Harmony In Diversity Complete Recordings, then! The recording day was in a barn in Lenwade in Norfolk, either in the summer of 2005 or 2006, I have pretty much forgotten it. It was an improvisation session with Tim Bowness, Mike Bearpark, Stephen Bennett, Peter Chilvers and Myke Clifford - essentially Tim’s live band with one swap-out (Myke instead of Pete Morgan). Apparently we recorded about five hours of material. Some of it I do actually remember playing, e.g. the funk groove of "Man Singing". Relatively soon after, within a year or so, Tim had taken one of the decent sections and turned it into a song called "Schoolyard Ghosts". With a lot of re-arrangement by Steven Wilson it became "Mixtaped" on the No-Man album Schoolyard Ghosts from 2008. We now always play "Mixtaped" in Tim’s live band. His original version turned up as a bit of an anomaly on his Memories Of Machines album, mixed by Steven. I really like it, and it’s worth a listen if only to hear what the drums should have sounded like on Men Singing. Besides that track, I didn’t tune in much to what Tim and Stephen were doing with the material. I occasionally heard they were working on it, by way of a few mixes here and there from Stephen, but in general progress seemed to be slow. For me, the penny didn’t drop that the album was a thing until they were just about to release it. Suddenly I found out Jarrod Gosling (who now does Tim’s artwork) and Phil Manzanera had contributed parts. I still cannot believe they pushed it out the door with that boxy mono drum sound. I mean, guys, come on.

You recently formed Piko Cloud Booker with guitarist Cameron Piko (of Montresor) and bassist/violinist Gaz Cloud (of Cloud & Owl). Is there any more news on this project?

Not much from me! My main interest these days is in playing live. Cameron moved back to Australia last year, so that put an end to any gigging prospects for the foreseeable future. Plus, the vast Harmony In Diversity Complete Recordings effort was soaking up quite a bit of my time, so I stepped out. I’d happily step back in again if it led to gigs. Anyway, Cameron is prolific, he’s always writing stuff, so I expect we’ll all be hearing from him soon one way or another.

My thanks to Andrew for being easy to interview. You can follow Andrew's work at his Facebook page here. You can buy The Complete Recordings by Peter Banks's Harmony in Diversity here.

Poll: What was the best Yes-related album of the first half of 2018?

I closed this poll a bit early because the news site is taking a short summer break, so just 43 votes, but the results had mostly stabilised.

1. Peter Banks: Be Well, Be Safe, Be Lucky... The Anthology (w/ Kaye, Sherwood): 17 votes (40%)
2. The Sea Within: The Sea Within (w/ Anderson): 12 votes (28%)
3= John Holden: Capture Light (w/ Sherwood, O Wakeman): 6 votes (14%)
3= Moraz & Friends: Random Kingdom: 6 votes (14%)
5. Rick Wakeman: Live Portraits: 2 votes (5%)
6. Derek Smalls: Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing) (w/ R Wakeman): 0 votes (0%)

A good win for the Pete Banks anthology, which included a number of previously unreleased tracks. Definitely a recommended release and at a budget price. I am also enjoying the runner-up, The Sea Within, with Tom Brislin teaming up with Roine Stolt, Marco Minnemann and others, plus a brief guest vocal from Anderson. I actually voted for equal third placed Capture Light, John Holden's great debut album, which I've talked about previously.

I've not heard Random Kingdom, although it has had good reviews. It wasn't a great result for Rick Wakeman. Live Portraits is an oddly low-key release that hasn't received much attention, despite the big marketing push for Piano Portraits and Piano Odyssey. The Spinal Tap spin-off album from 'Derek Smalls' (actor Harry Shearer) I have heard and is pretty good for what is meant to be comedy.

All in all, while fewer releases than either half of 2017, a strong set of releases. Let's see what the rest of the year brings. My three tips for the period so far would be Harmony in Diversity's The Complete Recordings, the debut album from Kilty Town (Wakeman guests) and the Trevor Horn project, The Eighties Reimagined.

REV: Peter Banks' Be Well, Be Safe, Be Lucky... The Anthology

Due 9 March is the 2CD Be Well, Be Safe, Be Lucky... The Anthology, the third Peter Banks Musical Estate release after The Self-Contained Trilogy and Empire's The Complete Recordings.

This anthology is part best-of and part compiling a set of material otherwise hard/impossible to find. As with the previous PBME releases, there is a low cover price, which means it doesn't matter whether you want an introduction to Pete's solo work or want the rarities, this release works for you.

For those who don't have all of Banks' solo albums, there is a good selection here, bringing a sense of unity to an output over several decades, with tracks from all five of his solo albums.

For those who have all the regular solo albums, there is plenty more here. The second disc rescues the solo material from Can I Play You Something?, which otherwise seems unlikely to be re-issued given rights issues, and it does so preserving the playfulness and collage approach of the original.

Rarities can be rare without being good, but there are plenty of gems here. We get the two hard to find Guitar Workshop tracks, a brief moment of a lost period between Two Sides and his 1990s work. We get the Flashback remixes, Banks as collagist crossed with Gerard Johnson as remixer, which don't quite fit anywhere, but find a home here.

Two previously unreleased versions of known tracks aren't radically different, but nice to have. And recorded (I presume) for this anthology, "Knights (Revisited)", re-unites, albeit posthumously, Banks with three former collaborators. Mirroring the "dream team" of Banks, Steve Hackett, John Wetton and Phil Collins on "Knights (Reprise)", "Knights (Revisited)" gives us a CIRCA: line-up of Tony Kaye, Billy Sherwood and Jay Schellen, who had all previously and separately worked with Banks. (Kaye of course was in Yes with him. Schellen was in his solo band at the beginning of the 1980s. Sherwood employed Banks on various projects in later years.) It's a tasteful completion, keeping Banks' playing to the fore, but nicely filling in the gaps in the recording.

Together the first 3 PBME releases (that's 8 discs, obtainable for about £36 in total) present a glorious picture of nearly three decades of Pete's work, neatly and nicely packaged, back in print at affordable prices. I think Peter would be happy that his music is available and being heard. The hope is now that PBME will move on to Pete's last couple of decades.

You can buy the anthology here: http://geni.us/PBME3

REV: Peter Banks, The Self-Contained Trilogy

The 3CD The Self-Contained Trilogy is out 2 March 2018. I was kindly sent a preview. This is a straight re-release of the three '90s solo albums – Instinct, Self-Contained and Reduction – to bring the material back into print, again at a budget price. If you've already got all three, there is nothing you need here. If you have two, one or (and be ashamed!) none of these, this is a convenient and cheap way of completing your collection.

If you don't know this material, you have missed out on some of Peter Banks' best work. The three showcase an extraordinary guitarist, both someone just about recognisable from Yes or Flash days, but also a musician who has come a long way from those years, making intricate and lyrical guitar music. All three are instrumental guitar albums. They are distinctive works – I can't think of releases by other artists that are quite the same – and offer a broad musical palette even though largely played on electric guitar.

The music is full of riffs and ideas, but these are pieced into larger musical journeys. I thought of Jon Anderson's comments on how we wants to present his music as a journey (as we heard before both the Anderson Ponty tour and the Anderson Rabin Wakeman tour), something he has never quite realised across various projects live. I wonder whether what Banks delivers on these albums is what Anderson had in mind?

There is some influence from the different collaborators – Gerald Goff initially, Gerard Johnson later – but the albums are all Banks' vision. If you had asked me, looking back on these albums, which was the best, I would have said Instinct. Re-visiting the material, I have changed my position. Instinct stands out because it was the first, its music exploding on the scene after years when Banks had been forgotten, surprising many. There is an exuberance, as if Banks has been uncaged.

Yet, while all three are broadly similar in style, Banks then developed and refined his approach on Self-Contained and Reduction, so I think the best music lies on these. It is also on these later albums that Banks emerges as a collagist, splicing together and contrasting the music and found samples.

To buy The Self-Contained Trilogy, http://geni.us/PBME2

REV: Empire, The Complete Recordings

The Peter Banks Musical Estate is working to get Pete's music back in print. Empire's The Complete Recordings was released late last year and following in early March are The Self-Contained Trilogy, with his three '90s solo albums, plus Be Well, Be Safe, Be Lucky... The Anthology, with all sorts of rarities and extras. I was kindly sent previews, so I'll post reviews of the forthcoming releases soon, but first some thoughts on Empire.

In summary, The Complete Recordings does what it says: a handy and low priced collection of everything Empire did, lovingly put together, bringing the material back into print, and allowing one to appreciate this neglected period of Peter Banks' career. Empire was formed by Banks with Sidonie Jordan (initially his partner, latterly his ex) on vocals, then performing as Sydney Foxx.

Jordan helped assemble this 3CD release which has everything on the band's four albums –  Mark I, Mark II, Mark III and The Mars Tapes – remastered and in a different order. There are extensive notes and photos from Jordan and others in a 40-page booklet. There is also an additional track: "Who", a 1975 demo for a proposed post-Empire project with Banks and Jordan. This was previously included on a compilation from Flash's Ray Bennett, who's on bass. (The one Empire-related song missing, I presume for rights issues, is a 1974 recording of the Jordan-penned "All God's Morning" by Jordan, Banks and Pete Townshend from With Love, one of Townshend's Meher Baba albums.)

None of the four Empire albums were actually released when the band was active. Banks and Jordan tried to get the band off the ground several times without success. Jordan met Banks in 1972 (her sister was dating Mike Hough, Flash's drummer) and they were married in 1974. She had been a recording artist for 10 years, with a publishing contract with A&M, and Empire was as much her band as Pete's. The first album was built around Jordan's back catalogue of A&M songs. Banks was coming out of Flash: indeed, the original plan had been for the new band to be called Flash until they found out they didn't have the rights to the name.

The first Empire line-up, recording in 1974, has some familiar names to prog fans. John Giblin (bass) and Preston Ross-Heyman (drums) were both later in Brand X, while keyboardist Jakob Magnusson later worked with Kevin Ayers. The most notable guest, on one track, is Phil Collins. Shortly before Empire, Collins had been playing in a live outfit called Zox and the Radar Boys with Banks, and they'd worked on some of Banks' ideas. Collins would then help the nascent Empire, lending them Genesis' rehearsal room.

However, Empire failed to secure a record deal. Jordan and Banks separated in 1975 (they didn't divorce until 1986), but ended up sharing a flat in Los Angeles. Empire tried again and this time got an album deal with Tattoo, a Warner subsidiary. Mark II was recorded in 1977, with a line-up including Jeffrey Fayman (later to work with Robert Fripp). Magnusson guested on the new sessions, the only other musician from Empire's first incarnation. However, Tattoo dropped them, complaining there wasn't a single on the album. The band dissolved and Jordan and Banks went their separate ways.

Until late 1979, when Banks found some backing for a third go at Empire. It is from this period that Mark III and The Mars Tapes comes. However, when the backing was withdrawn, the Mark III material was hastily completed, with Jordan apologetic for the production standards in the liner notes. Again, no record deal was forthcoming. None of the Empire material would be released until Mark I came out in 1995.

So, some of the Empire material is a bit rough, unpolished, and there's some repetition in the tracks ("Sky at Night" was carried over from Mark I to Mark II, "Destiny" from Mark II to Mark III), with the quasi-live Mars Tapes mostly covering material from the other albums, as well as reaching back to Yes' version of "Something's Coming". But in all I found re-visiting this material and having it all together to be revelatory. There was some magic here. The band sits – often successfully, if occasionally less easily – between Banks' progressive stylings (familiar from Flash and early Yes) and Jordan's American white soul. They could groove, they could be romantic and they could deliver 12-minute epics.

Jordan is a great singer. Delicate on "Sky at Night", romantic on "Destiny", sexy on "Soul Empire", and downright dirty on "Do What You Want". Banks is superb, and his key role in the Yes guitar sound apparent. Stylistically diverse, bringing a range of genre approaches that prog needs. However, the proggier Empire sometimes lacked a broader base of instrumentalist input or maybe they just needed some tighter arranging? "Foundation" goes on and on, in need of some keys or bass virtuoso playing. Although the rest of the band could deliver too, as on the 17-minute "Something's Coming".

The whole release has been put together with care. The one choice you might question is the break from chronological order. Instead disc 1 is labelled the 'Best of Empire', disc 2 is most of The Mars Tapes set, and disc 3 is the 'Rest of Empire'. But this works. I think the distinction is more between the 'Best' being an Empire as a successor to Flash or Yes, a proggier Empire, and the 'Rest' being a soul Empire aiming at the the late '70s clubs. In other words, disc 1 is full of guitar solos and freak outs, while disc 3 is more direct. Disc 2 sees the band stretch out with a quasi-live set.

But I suggest Empire was most successful when combining Banks' and Jordan's styles, e.g. with tracks like the Mark I "Sky at Night" (the one with Collins guesting), "More Than Words" or "Shooting Star". The multi-part "Shooting Star" is a stand out for me, with Jordan's voice, Banks' playing, and good support from the others (including some strong keys from Magnusson).

Sometimes overlooked compared to Flash before or Pete's '90s solo resurgence, Empire has plenty to offer and you can find it all here.

To buy The Complete Recordings, click through http://geni.us/PBME1
To buy The Self-Contained Trilogy, http://geni.us/PBME2
To buy Be Well, Be Safe, Be Lucky... The Anthology, http://geni.us/PBME3

Poll: Best Yes-related album of 1973

114 of you voted in our poll for the best Yes-related album of 1973. The results:

1) King Crimson: Larks' Tongues in Aspic (w/ Bruford): 47 (41%)
2) Rick Wakeman: The Six Wives of Henry VIII (w/ Bruford, Howe, Squire, White): 41 (36%)
3) Black Sabbath: Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath (w/ Wakeman): 10 (9%)
4=) Peter Banks: Two Sides of Peter Banks: 5 (4%)
4=) Badger: One Live Badger (w/ Kaye, Anderson): 5 (4%)
6) Paul Kossoff: Back Street Crawler (w/ White): 3 (3%)
7) Johnny Harris: All to Bring You Morning (w/ Anderson, Howe, White): 2 (2%)
8) Flash: In the Can (w/ Banks): 1 (1%)


There were no votes for Flash's Out of Our Hands (w/ Banks) or for Donovan's Cosmic Wheels and Claire Hamill's October (both w/ White).

So, a close result between two classic albums, Bruford's debut with King Crimson and Wakeman's first planned solo album. I was surprised to see Black Sabbath in third, ahead of Pete Banks' three albums or Badger's debut. 1974 poll up shortly on the main site.

Review: In Extremis by Days Between Stations; The New Progmantics by Sarastro Blake; Northumbria by Aethellis

I’ve received review copies of three albums by new bands: In Extremis by Days Between Stations (with guests including Billy Sherwood, Pete Banks and Rick Wakeman), The New Progmantics by Sarastro Blake (with guests including Billy Sherwood, Richard Sinclair and Rick Wakeman), and Northumbria by Aethellis. It's tough being a new band. With so much music so readily available, the competition is intense and it is difficult to stand out from the crowd. You might make the greatest music in the world ever, but if no-one ever hears it... That's even more true in a genre like progressive rock where the classic bands of yesteryear still dominate fan attention.

So, how can you boost your profile? One way is to establish a link with better known acts through a guest appearance (something the Internet has made easier to do). Being able to say that Rick Wakeman, say, plays on your album gets you noticed. It's a mark of approval from a big name. Music journalists have something to write about you, the audience takes notice and sales go up. And, hopefully, at least some of the new listeners attracted by the guest star will stay for the music you've produced. Not to mention that you get to make music with your heroes, and learn from an experienced pro.

Two albums out this year following this approach are In Extremis, the second release from US band Days Between Stations, and The New Progmantics, the debut from Sarastro Blake, a recording name for Paolo Pigni who has worked before in Mogador. And let me be honest: the guest star approach worked on me. Both are good albums, but I probably wouldn't have noticed either if they hadn't had that hook, guest starring...

But what do you with your guest star? (I know one label that loves to put the names of guest musicians in the album promo, but is less bothered if their actual contribution to a track is minimal.) How do you let them shine, while still complementing your music? It's easier to start with Sarastro Blake here. The guest list is impressive:  Billy Sherwood and Rick Wakeman from Yes, David Paton from Camel and the Alan Parsons Project, Greenslade's Dave Lawson, Richard Sinclair (ex-Caravan/Hatfield and the North), Nick Magnus (ex-Steve Hackett/The Enid), and current Hackett collaborator Amanda Lehmann.

Sarastro Blake offers a pastoral, Romantic (thus the name) version of prog with this set of enjoyable songs, harking back to earlier Genesis or Anthony Phillips. Pigni has situated his work in a particular style, but not so as to obscure his compositional voice. The core band is strong, but there is room for each guest star to make their distinctive stamp. It's like a box of cupcakes: you get a nice cake-y bit from the band, but an array of different icing from the guests.

Days Between Stations is a more complicated affair. This Californian band consists of Oscar Fuentes Bills and Iranian-born Sepand Samzadeh. As only a duo, the band have recruited greater involvement from their famous colleagues. Billy Sherwood is here as almost a third member: he plays drums throughout, co-produces, mixes, co-writes lyrics and sings. Tony Levin is the album's bassist. Others appear in a typical guest role: Wakeman and XTC's Colin Moulding are on one piece each, with Pete Banks on two.

In Extremis was given an unexpected legacy just as the album was being finished with the passing of Peter Banks. This is one of the last albums Banks worked on, and the last new recording to feature Banks on more than a single track. Remembering Pete was not a role planned for this album, but the band have modestly accepted the assignment. "Waltz in E Min" is dedicated to Banks, while the liner notes talk about Pete and include a contribution from his long-time friend George Mizer. Pete was a wonderful musician who often struggled to find the right outlet. It is welcome that Sherwood opened so many doors for him in recent years, and that Days Between Stations were able to enjoy their collaboration with him.

Both The New Progmantics and In Extremis have running themes, but In Extremis is more explicitly a concept album, about a man’s life flashing before his eyes just before he dies. It is also more diverse stylistically, ranging from orchestrally-supported instrumentals to pop. Days Between Stations are a young band reacting to a prog heritage. At their best, I think they conjure up atmospheres more akin to earlier Floyd or Pure Reason Revolution, but their attempts at traditional prog songs along the lines of Yes or Genesis, like "Eggshell Man", are less successful. That song, for example, lacks energy. It proceeds from one section to another too politely, without verve. The lyrics lack the poetry of the music. Promo for the album has used “Eggshell Man”, highlighting contributions from Wakeman and Banks as well as Sherwood and Levin. But the big-name guests contribute little to the track: Banks and Levin are barely noticeable, Wakeman's part predictable, while Sherwood's drumming actively detracts. We have an album that trades on big name guests, but which often thrives away from their performances.

"The Man Who Died Two Times" is the more successful vocal track, a tighter pop construction and a spirited vocal from Moulding make it punchy. The band are better too in pieces like "No Cause for Alarm" and "In Utero", eschewing the basic rock instrumentation, more like music for a never-made film. "In Utero" offers snatches of different styles, as it paints a scene. The nearest comparison that comes to my mind is Vangelis' "Blade Runner" score. The expansive title track also provides Samzadeh and Fuentes space to shine, and Banks’ contributions here are more interesting.

Sherwood's hard-working nature makes him feel almost ubiquitous in projects like these. His jack-of-all-trades approach means he can come in and fill whatever role a band needs, but I feel he does better in some roles than others. His production of In Extremis is strong and something from which both The New Progmantics and Northumbria would have benefited. But Sherwood has a distinctive thump-y style as a drummer. This works bringing an urgent, martial tone to "No Cause for Alarm", but sits at odds with the atmosphere elsewhere on the album, becoming too familiar on an album that is otherwise quite eclectic in instrumentation.

Northumbria by Aethellis (released 2011) has no guest stars, no famous names to bring it to your attention, but it is just as worthy of that attention. The band consists of Ellsworth Hall (keyboards, vocals), Mark Van Natta (guitar, vocals, Erik Marks (bass, vocals), Mike Harrington (drums, vocals) and Joe Dwyer (sax). While the name and cover art give the impression that this will be another pastoral affair, the album is actually much more eclectic, in the way prog should be! If I had to describe the album overall, it’s what Rick Wakeman should have been doing in the 1980s, but wasn’t. There’s old school Rick Wakeman-like, proggy keyboards, but that’s mixing with a 1980s Genesis sound (“The Penal Colony” steers rather close to “Turn It On Again”) and also more modern elements (“The Awakening” reminds me of Ken Ramm’s Euphoria). There’s strong playing, catchy songwriting, and stylistic variation squeezed together. Samples, as for the other two albums, are available online.

Both In Extremis and The New Progmantics are in the current Where Are They Now? poll on the best Yes-related releases of the first half of 2013: you can vote here.