YES

Relayer
Rålayer was first issued as ATLANTIC #18122 (5/12/74)

(1974 / 2003)

1. Gates Of Delirium 21'56
(Jon Anderson / Steve Howe / Patrick Moraz / Chris Squire / Alan White)
©1974 TOPOGRAPHIC MUSIC, BMI
2. Sound Chaser 9'27
(Jon Anderson / Steve Howe / Patrick Moraz / Chris Squire / Alan White)
©1974 TOPOGRAPHIC MUSIC, BMI
3. To Be Over 9'19
(Jon Anderson / Steve Howe / Patrick Moraz / Chris Squire / Alan White)
©1974 TOPOGRAPHIC MUSIC, BMI

Bonus Tracks

4. Soon (Single Edit) 4'18
ATLANTIC Single #3242 (3/1/75
5. Sound Chaser (Single Edit) 3'14
ATLANTIC Single #3242 (8/1/75)
6. The Gates Of Delirium (Studio Run Throught) 21'16
(Previously Unissued)

Total Time: 69:30

  • Jon Anderson - Vocals
  • Steve Howe - Guitar, Vocals
  • Patrick Moraz - Keyboards
  • Chris Squire - Bass, Vocals
  • Alan White - Drums and Percussion

    Produced by YES and Eddie Offord
    Tapes by Genaro Rippo
    Coordmated by Brian Lane
    Original group Photograph by Jean Ristori
    Plates Made by Manseil Litho
    Paste Up by Mike Allison
    Cover Designed and Drawn by Roger Dean
    Reissue Supervision: Steve Woolard and David M'cLees
    Sound Produced by Bill Inglot
    Remastering Dan Hersch and Bill Inglot at DIGIPREP
    Product Manager: Marc Salata
    Editorial Supervision: Cory Frye
    Art Direction and Design: Greg Af!en@gapd with Bryan Lasiey
    Photos: Paul Canty / London Features (pg.8 top middle & bottom left) London Featufes (pg.8 2 & 5), Michnaelochs.Archives.com (under tray), Michael Putland /     RETNA Ltd. (pg.8 top left), top right & bottom right)
    Project Assistance: Karen LeBlanc, Tim Scanlm, April Milek, Randy Perry Leigh Hall Ginger Dettman and Steven Chean

    Special Thanks Clifford W. Loeslin and Don Williams

    All the Music was Written and Arranged by YES

    Recorded on Eddie Offord's mobile equipment in England during the late summer & autumn 1974
    Mixed at     ADVISION

    Patrick Moraz appear Courtesy of CHARISMA RECORDS Ltd.

    Relayer is YES' most underrecognized and underappreciated masterpiece. Maybe if s because Relayer is something of a transitional album, cut in the wake of keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman's initial departure. Maybe it's because the Relayer lineup of Jon Anderson (vocals), Chris Squire (bass), Steve Howe (guitar), Alan White (drums), and Patrick Moraz (keyboards) only produced one studio recording. But the album has continued to gain recognition from YES, and in retrospect Relayer stands as one of the band's most adventurous, most unique, and, ultimately, most satisfying efforts.
    Wakeman had left the lineup following the tours for Tales From Topographic Oceans, reducing YES to a four-piece. However, they jumped back into the studio and immediately began writing and rehearsing new material while scrambling to find a replacement keyboardist. Several musicians were auditioned, most notably Vangelis Papathanassiou (later of Chariots Of Fire fame). The process dragged on, and though no replacement had yet been found, the material they were working on was taking shape. The band was primed to make a great YES album. They just needed to fill one key spot. Enter Patrick Moraz, the Swiss-born leader of a progressive rock trio called Refugee. Moraz's good nature and keen interest in jazz/rock fusion and rhythm seemed to fit perfectly. "At the time, we were all vegetarian, and Patrick was asked if he would become a vegetarian, to which he replied, 'If necessary!'" Squire recalls. YES offered Moraz the job in the summer of 1974. The versatile and flamboyant keyboardist, whose own band offered him far more range, was aware that with YES, he was walking into a project that was already very much in progress, leaving him as a supporting player. The band had been working on the new material for some time, and each member had expanded his role, encroaching on areas previously filled by keyboards. Steve Howe was experimenting with a harder-edged guitar sound and exploring some of his most assertive playing. No longer the "new guy," drummer Alan White had carved out a dynamic place for himself in the lineup, melding with Chris Squire to transform the YES rhythm section into an intense jazz/rock fusion engine; their Relayer performances are among their finest. Jon Anderson's compositional skills and creative energy were at their peak, and the singer had lofty goals for this album. Patrick Moraz remembers his initial sessions as a member of YES: "Jon actually led me through the compositions and through the core of the arrangement and the construction of most of the themes of 'The Gates Of Delirium/ which were composed by the time I came in. Not all of it was complete, but everything was in his head. I think he had the plan for the whole symphony. It was like a symphony. In the world of rock 'n' roll, although very influenced by The Beatles and the English music scene at that time, I always acquaint YES with what Stravinsky would have done as a rock musician. YES music has that kind of symphonic approach and arrangement. The sophistication of the orchestration is absolutely staggering."
    "I was very interested in doing something really modern," Anderson recalls. "I wanted to do more electronic music-something radically different. I would talk to the band about doing free form music, without thought. After Tales From Topographic Oceans, where the structure was so tight, why not do a piece of music so outrageously different?" Steve Howe credits Anderson with leading the band through "Gates." "He had a vision for it," Howe explains. "He had lots of structure, and we were very impressed. A great deal of 'Gates' was invented as a group, but from Jon's ideas. The song was a vehicle for YES that Jon laid out. He had some music for the beginning of the piece, which we turned into an overture. That's the interplay of the group, and that interplay was key. He was shaping 'The Gates Of Delirium' out of thin air and some basic structure. And we would embellish those structures. Jon charged on and on and on. It's probably his most successful moment at leading the band towards a goal he had in his mind." "I actually went in and banged 'Gates' out on the piano to the group," Anderson says. "Not totally, but I gave them all the pieces of music that were flying around in my head. It must have sounded really bad, because I could barely play the piano in those days," he laughs. "And Patrick Moraz was very, very consistent at that time and interested in doing something very modern." "The Gates Of Delirium" is loosely based on Tolstoy's War And Peace, complete with a wild battle sequence in the middle of the track that sprang from a creative collaboration between Alan White and Patrick Moraz. "We decided that the keyboards and the drums would have a very physical, audible battle with one another," White says. "I put in a lot of backwards drums. The piece builds and builds and builds until that beautiful melody breaks through at the end. I actually wrote those chords on guitar, which is funny, because I don't really play the guitar. I wrote the chords, and Patrick came up with the melody. "The percussion on that song is pretty unusual. Jon and I used to travel together to Chris' home studio, where we recorded the album. We would stop at a junkyard along the way and pick up parts of cars. We'd just go there and bang on things. There were springs and pieces of metal, brake, and clutch plates. We'd buy them and bring them back to the studio. We built a rack and hung all these things off it, and we'd bang on them. During the recording I pushed the whole thing over. That crash is what you hear on the album." The song culminates with the beautiful and uplifting "Soon," a poetic meditation of hope and redemption - one of Jon Anderson's finest moments. "Sound Chaser" is YES in interstellar overdrive, an otherworldly rocker led by Moraz's ghostly jazz riff. "Listening to 'Sound Chaser' again yielded some surprises," Steve Howe says. "That tune really holds up for me. What I love about the song is how we got the two really strong entities going against one another. 'Sound Chaser' has this keyboard tune really hammering away against Chris and I doing our guitar and bass riffs. 'Sound Chaser' is really Patrick Moraz shining through." "Creativity is the state of dynamic tension between extreme forces in opposition," Moraz corroborates. "It is also the exultation of the spirit affirming its freedom to express new value. And the meaning of that new value is not based on the performance, it is based on the feeling at any given time and at the time it is expressed. That's what we were looking for." The gentle and beautiful "To Be Over" closes the album. "It was one of my songs that Jon liked," Howe says. "It was quite a well-structured song. It had guitar breaks and guitar themes. Listening to 'To Be Over' again recently was really moving. We had this abundance of rich ideas that weren't simply knitted together in an abstract way; they were meant to be together. We actually reached a point with'the writing where the bits all became vital components of the whole. For me, this song has one of YES' best middle eights. I wrote the structure for it, and Jon always had the words. I contributed the 'After all' line, but I never knew what should come after that. Jon liked the 'After all,' but he rewrote the other bits. He liked a different song I had written that started off with the lines, 'We'll go sailing down the stream together/ and changed it to 'calming stream,' which moved the song in a new direction.
    "I had a riff that fit with Jon's tune. Patrick played my tune some of the time, and I played Jon's, but when you listen to the song, Patrick primarily played Jon's original tune. I couldn't have wished for a better way of falling into the first verse. YES often changes chords very rapidly, when you aren't expecting it. But this was a simple progression that, once arranged by the group, became a very classic, beautiful ingredient of the song. "I think that Relayer stands out in a very big way, in a very noisy sort of way," Howe concludes. "It is hard to sum up what is so dense about this record, but it was a very smoky, dense, jazzy, nice right tiitn for us at the time." "People always ask me what my favorite YES album is," says Alan White. "It's hard to pick an absolute favorite-1 enjoy them all. But from the perspective of where the rhythm section is coming from, I always single out the Relayer album." For Chris Squire, the change that it brought was a welcome opportunity. "It was a very different album, and that is what is good about it, really," he says. "We were growing and experimenting and trying new things. There was definitely a bit of jazz/rock fusion going on. I enjoyed it." "Relayer was very much like the album cover: It has lots of gray areas," Jon Anderson says. "We were jumping like crazy to make music. You can hear it on the tracks. It was quite theatrical. Relayer was an extension of where we were going." The album was released on November 28, 1974, in the United Kingdom, reaching #4 on the charts. It was released on December 5 in the United States, where it climbed to #5. YES toured extensively in support of the LP, making several trips across the U.S. between 1974 and 1976, playing to some of the largest and most enthusiast crowds of their careers. Like all the best YES albums, Relayer is a timeless gem that continues to enthrall and amaze nearly three decades after its initial release, showcasing the band at their most adventurous and experimental, taking risks and never looking back.

    — Doug & Glenn Gottlieb

    YESWorld, The YES Online Service - http://yesworld.com

    ©2003 RHINO RECORDS




    1. Gates Of Delirium

      Stand and fight we do consider
      Reminded of an inner pact between us
      That's seen as we go
      And ride there
      In motion
      To fields in debts of honor
      Defending

      Stand the marchers soaring talons,
      Peaceful lives will not deliver freedom,
      Fighting we know,
      Destroy oppression
      The point to reaction
      As leaders look to you
      Attacking

      Choose and renounce throwing chains to the floor.
      Kill or be killing faster sins correct the flow.
      Casting giant shadows off vast penetrating force
      To alter via the war that seen
      As friction spans the spirits wrath ascending to redeem.

      Power spent passion bespoils our soul receiver,
      Surely we know.
      In glory
      We rise to offer,
      Create our freedom,
      A word we utter,
      A word.

      Words cause our banner, victorious our day.
      Will silence be promised as violence display?
      The curse increased we fight the pow'r
      And live by it by day.
      Our gods awake in thunderous roars,
      And guide the leaders hand in paths of glory to the cause.

      Listen, should we fight forever
      Knowing as we do know fear destroys?
      Listen, should we leave our children?
      Listen, our lives stare in silence;
      Help us now.

      Listen, your friends have been broken,
      They tell us of your poison; now we know.
      Kill them, give them as they give us.
      Slay them, burn their children's laughter
      On to hell.

      The fist will run, grasp metal to gun.
      The spirit sings in crashing tones,
      We gain the battle drum.
      Our cries will shrill, the air will moan and crash into the dawn.
      The pen won't stay the demon's wings,
      The hour approaches pounding out the Devil's sermon.

      Soon, oh soon the light,
      Pass within and soothe this endless night
      And wait here for you,
      Our reason to be here.

      Soon, oh soon the time,
      All we move to gain will reach and calm;
      Our heart is open,
      Our reason to be here.

      Long ago, set into rhyme.
      Soon, oh soon the light,
      Ours to shape for all time,
      Ours the right;
      The sun will lead us,
      Our reason to be here.

      Soon, oh soon the light,
      Ours to shape for all time,
      Ours the right;
      The sun will lead us,
      Our reason to be here.

    2. Sound Chaser

      Faster moment spent spread tales of change within the sound,
      Counting form through rhythm electric freedom
      Moves to counterbalance stars expound our conscience
      All to know and see the look in your eyes.

      Passing time will reach as nature relays to set the scene,
      New encounters spark a true fruition,
      Guiding lines we touch them, our bodies balance out the waves
      As we accelerate our days to the look in your eyes.

      From the moment I reached out to hold, I felt a sound,
      And what touches our soul slowly moves as touch rebounds.
      And to know that tempo will continue
      Lost in trance of dances as rhythm takes another turn,
      As is my want, I only reach to look in your eyes.

    3. To Be Over

      We go sailing down the calming streams,
      Drifting endlessly by the bridge.
      To be over, we will see, to be over.

      Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays;
      Always doors to lock away your dreams.
      Think it over, time will heal your fear, think it over.
      Balance the thoughts that release within you.

      Childlike soul dreamer.
      One journey, one to seek and see in ev'ry light
      Do open true pathways away.

      Carrying closer,
      Go gently, holding doors will open ev'ry way
      You wander true pathways away.

      After all your soul will still surrender.
      After all don't doubt your part,
      Be ready to be loved.