Roger Dean has released a video showing new Yes album artwork, giving rise to rumours that the prog legends are going to release a new studio album this year.
In the clip, from his official Facebook page, which you can see in full below, Dean is showing off sketches for proposed new artwork. A post from a few days earlier shows off "a recent design for the new Yes album, which didn’t end up getting used but it was an interesting concept."
"OK, so this is the final sketch, I sometimes do colour studies, I sometimes do a lot, and sometimes I go straight to the canvas," says Dean in the clip. "But in this occasion, this one is done on a water colour and pad, so these pages peel off. But until I peel them off they keep the paper dead flat, which is really great. And then I paint. So this is the last before the real."
Renowned online Yes expert Henry Potts, who runs the Yes - Where Are They Now? website, states in a blog on upcoming Yes activity that he believes there will be a new studio album released by the band this year, a follow-up 2021's The Quest.
"Steve Howe likes to run a tight ship with Yes: no leaks," writes Potts. "But enough has come out to say we expect a new Yes album in 2023, with Howe, Downes, Sherwood and Davison, with White having recorded drum parts before he passed away, with Joyce and the FAMES orchestra back. Rumour has it out in the first half of the year. Presumably they will want it out before or not too long after touring begins on 7 May 2023."
More news as we get it.
