New four-disc box set for 'great lost Yes album' Talk due in May

Yes
(Image credit: Getty Images/Robert Knight Archive/Redferns)

Yes have announced they will release a 30th-anniversary edition of 1994's Talk album through Spirit Of Unicorn Music on May 24.

The band's fourteenth studio album has been digitally remastered and will be released as a four-disc deluxe edition featuring bonus studio material and a previously unreleased live show from Canandaigua in New York from May 19, 1994, a limited edition double white vinyl set and as a single CD. You can watch a new video trailer for the reissue below.

Talk was originally released on the [then] newly formed Victory Music (part of the JVC company), headed up by Phil Carson, the record company executive who had been instrumental in the success of the band's 1983 album 90125. It was the third and final album released by the Trevor Rabin incarnation of the band, or Yes West as they were dubbed. It followed a larger-scale Yes reunion for 1991's Union album.

"It was just a beautiful time for me and Trev," enthuses singer Jon Anderson in the exclusive new interviews featured in the set from Prog Editor Jerry Ewing. "It was a very harmonious experience for me.

"When I listen to Endless Dream it’s such a great piece of music. It’s one of the great Yes pieces of music that not many people know. It’s beautiful. And The Calling. I love it."

Talk was one of the first albums to be recorded and edited entirely digitally, without using traditional audio tape - 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, the completed Talk took up 34GB of memory, which today could be transferred via a flash drive in seconds.

The album's progress was sadly thwarted by the record label going bust within weeks of its release, leading to its general scarcity. It was reissued as a Collector's Edition in April 2002 on Spitfire Records, and in 2006 as part of the Yes album compilation box set Essentially Yes on Eagle Records, but has remained a difficult-to-find release for fans.

Despite record label issues Yes undertook a 77-date tour of the US, Canada, South America and Japan, culminating at Hiroshima’s Kousei Nenkin Kaikan on October 11, 1994. It would be the last time Trevor Rabin would play with Yes as a full-time member.

"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."

You can view the new packshot and tracklisting for all additions below.

Burning Shed pre-order.

Yes

(Image credit: Spirit Of Unicorn Music)

Yes

(Image credit: Spirit Of Unicorn Music)

Yes: Talk tracklist

CD1 - Original Album
1. The Calling
2. I Am Waiting
3. Real Love
4. State Of Play
5. Walls
6. Where Will You Be
7. Endless Dream
a) Silent Spring (Instrumental)
b) Talk
c) Endless Dream

CD2 - Talk Versions
1. The Calling (Special Version)
2. The Calling (Single Edit)
3. The Calling (Radio Edit)
4. Untitled – Trevor Rabin Instrumental
5. Endless Dream (Demo)
6. Where Will You Be (Instrumental)
7. Walls (Instrumental)
8. Endless Dream (Excerpt) (Instrumental)

CD3 - Live Canandaigua, New York 19/06/94
1. I Am Waiting*
2. The Calling*
3. Rhythm Of Love*
4. Hearts*
5. Real Love*
6. Changes*
7. Heart Of The Sunrise
8. Roundabout

CD4 - Live Canandaigua, New York 19/06/94
1. Cinema*
2. City Of Love*
3. Make It Easy*
4. Owner Of A Lonely Heart*
5. Trevor Rabin Piano Solo/And You And I*
6. I’ve Seen All Good People*
7. Walls*
8. Endless Dream*

*Previously unreleased

2-LP limited edition white vinyl
A1. The Calling
A2. I Am Waiting

B1. Real Love
B2. State Of Play
B3. Walls

C1. Where Will You Be
C2. Endless Dream
a) Silent Spring (Instrumental)
b) Talk
c) Endless Dream

Bonus Track

D1. The Calling (Special Version)

Single CD
1. The Calling
2. I Am Waiting
3. Real Love
4. State Of Play
5. Walls
6. Where Will You Be
7. Endless Dream
a) Silent Spring (Instrumental)
b) Talk
c) Endless Dream

Jerry Ewing

Writer and broadcaster Jerry Ewing is the Editor of Prog Magazine which he founded for Future Publishing in 2009. He grew up in Sydney and began his writing career in London for Metal Forces magazine in 1989. He has since written for Metal Hammer, Maxim, Vox, Stuff and Bizarre magazines, among others. He created and edited Classic Rock Magazine for Dennis Publishing in 1998 and is the author of a variety of books on both music and sport, including Wonderous Stories; A Journey Through The Landscape Of Progressive Rock.