Ambient Yes

From the Summer 2003 issue.

Prog-rockers Yes as euro-electronica dancetrack?

Nah ... although that's the marketing spin from the record company suits on the new reworking of classic Yes tracks from Steve Howe's son, Virgil (aka The Verge). But if not mindless enough for the martini and neon crowd, it's a pretty interesting listen, hearing familiar songs made less familiar, hearing them turned inside out and back again.

It's closer to what remix master Bill Laswell did with Miles Davis on "Panthalassa" – it's more a what-if proposition: What if the same sessions had been recorded with a different producer at the helm, with a different focus, a different end game?

And so "Starship Troopers" is still a slowly escalating monster jam, but one with more keyboards, less guitar (so much for filial loyalty), and a more ratcheting rhythm. "Siberian Khatru" is more jarring, more dissonant, almost industrial.

Still, even if the trendy clubgoers are unlikely to dance or even chill to this, Yes fans may be pleasantly surprised by how many different readings the Yes book lends itself to.

Review by Jim Trageser. Jim is a writer and editor living in Escondido, Calif., and was a contributor to the "Grove Press Guide to Blues on CD" (1993) and "The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Blues" (2005).