Who should write the new album?

[bondegezou]

So, Geoff did some great writing in the 1980s for Drama and what became Fly From Here, but I really have no idea what he'd sound like in a Yes context today contributing more extensively.

We have "Subway Walls", "A Living Island", sort of "The Ice Bridge", and "Living Out Their Dream". Isn't that enough to form some idea of what Downes sounds like as a composer in a Yes context today?

[rabin105]

Jay schellen has written stuff with Jon davison no word of it will be arc of life or yes but here’s hoping if its good its on the yes album

[downbyariver]

We have "Subway Walls", "A Living Island", sort of "The Ice Bridge", and "Living Out Their Dream". Isn't that enough to form some idea of what Downes sounds like as a composer in a Yes context today?

On "The Ice Bridge", I thought he did good work selecting the main portion of music from the group of demos and such he was looking through, played well on the track, did a good job substituting superior choices of keyboards and technology to what was in the original Francis Monkman instrumental version in many places (Although how much a wider availability of keyboards decades into the future played into that is uncertain- I don't really know keyboard tech. Geoff definitely does sound different- better different- playing some of the same parts, though.), and did a good job arranging and adding to the piece; but he really wasn't the main author of the instrumental music on the song. So, I don't know how much it says or doesn't say about how Geoff writes Yes music in the present, but it's my favorite song off The Quest- he definitely knew a good song when he heard it and made it better.

I listened to "Subway Walls" again a couple times since your post (Admittedly while doing stuff in the background). I do like some of the darker more ominous elements of instrumental music and the ones that seem to build tension. There was even a bit that reminded me slightly (In a good way) of the solo he did on the 1983 Asia: Live in Asia special. Honestly, though, this is the type of song that should have built to an even darker louder part IMO. We should have been hearing loud stormy riffy electric guitar and pounding organs and drums and bass like the end of a Big Generator tour version of "WURM" before this song was over (I realize the Heaven & Earth version of Yes was probably never going to get there, but then maybe you go in a different direction entirely on the song- Mirror to the Sky [The album] has some examples of how you can do dark without doing hard rock and roll if you want to [Though it was harder than Heaven & Earth].).

Instead, what I felt like happened on "Subway Walls" was that the melody "fell back" and started to sound like some of the overly sweet semi-cheesy musical portions of the album (Which, honestly, was most of the Heaven & Earth album- though sweet worked on some songs.). Eventually it starts to build again, but only briefly to a Howe guitar crescendo that sounds more like a melodic portion of a 70s Yes album than what this song really called for at that juncture (Though clearly Geoff did identify that the song needed to move towards something, as I did, and that's what happened. It just wasn't quite the same something as I would have liked, though not bad for what it was.). Actually, that is one of the few songs without Steve Howe singing that I am going to say might have benefited from a little bit of Howe vocals to keep the mood in a lower pitch (Though really, it'd better if the band had a sixth man vocalist/multi-instrumentalist to do stuff like that, or hired a session musician for songs on albums that would benefit from it)- not on the whole song, but selectively- like the way Steve has the first sung words on "Mirror to the Sky" (The song).

It also was a song that seemed like it could have benefited from being longer with more instrumental parts. There are a lot of songs on Heaven & Earth that either seem too long or too short. Like, a good pop ballad is shorter than most of the ballads attempted on that album and many could have been better songs with several minutes trimmed off, making them less repetitive, whereas the more proggy songs attempted seem almost truncated and not given the time for the music to fully develop at times. Like it sounds like it was produced by Opposite Producer Man, an oddly subtle comic book style villain who goes around telling people's favorite bands to do everything the opposite of the way that a good producer would, hurting their otherwise good ideas.

Now, it does have to be recognized that, firstly, that "Subway Walls" was on an album that Jon Davison recently called essentially published demos, and others in the band have said they didn't have enough time with. So, there's that. Maybe the song would have been improved if they had gotten the time they say they needed. It's also possible, depending on exactly how the creative process on the song went, that Downes felt he needed to go in a certain way on the melody to meet the lyrical content (If it was already written) or perceived limitations on how much Alan White and Steve Howe could rock during this portion of their careers. There could also have been some degree of tone matching with the rest of the album to try to make it part of a coherent whole. Maybe someone in the band requested some restrictions on how dark these songs could be. We don't know what the label was telling them. Their producer was basically missing in action due to personal issues. There are lots of factors involved in stuff like that, some of which we don't know.

I'd love to see some band take the cool parts of the "Subway Walls" aesthetic, which at it's best reminds me of sort of a dark Transylvanian castle (Adding bat sounds and dripping water might be going over the top, but, then again, it might not. )- or, you know, subway walls in an old poorly lit subway- and build a dark moody rock song out of it. I'd enjoy hearing what that sounds like, because I do think there were the roots of something there and it just went wonky at times, zigging when it should have zagged. Basically almost all of what I said is subjective assessment, but that's what we're doing right? Subjectively assessing.

"A Living Island" is good, one of my favorite songs off The Quest. I'm not sure how much of that is the instrumental music, but Geoff does deserve credit for writing music that serves the lyrics (Lyrics which I really like in the context of it being a ballad among mostly non-ballads. An entire album of that would be too much of it for me, but Davison obviously has talent with ballads, and it makes sense to play into that for a song or two an album without letting it take over. One of my favorite songs from Mirror to the Sky is also a ballad.) and creates a good whole on that song.

"Living Out Their Dream" is a song that's good in terms of the instrumental musical part, and has lyrics that I'm taking a long time to warm up to (It may happen, it just hasn't happened yet). So, while that is my least favorite of the six songs off the main disc of The Quest at this juncture, none of that is Geoff's fault. Geoff wrote the part of it I like, the non-lyrical underlying musical portions.

So, ultimately, we're talking about 4 songs over 3 albums, one of which Geoff wasn't the primary writer of the music for. I'm not sure how much that tells me. I did try to elaborate in response to your query, though.

He has a nice little few second intro part on "All Connected". It doesn't look like he wrote that, but it reminds me a little of Asia (in a good way). The little bit of Howe and little bit of Geoff.

And, really, if I were to try to make a case that Geoff should write more of the next album, it'd be predicated on his writing with Asia, and on Drama and Fly From Here. His recent Yes output isn't enough for me to say "Why don't we let this guy write most of the next album?". Recent Yes output isn't the only factor in play, though, of course. The man is a living legend.

I'm not going to throw one of my favorite musicians under the bus based on that recent Yes stuff (Which wasn't bad, but also wasn't overwhelmingly awesome.), but I'm also not going to call for him to write more on the next Yes album (Unless necessary because his output winds up being better than what others wind up bringing to the table in the particular time period in which the album is written). I think the Davison/Sherwood/Howe trio as the main artistic voices is working for them. If I were to suggest a change it might be an outside writer, vocalist, and guitarist (Which could be three different guys, or all the same guy) to do a track or two on the next album that rock things up even more than Mirror to the Sky, but I don't see that happening, and I do see myself liking the next album anyway.

[downbyariver]

Jay schellen has written stuff with Jon davison no word of it will be arc of life or yes

It could also wind up on a Circa: album. Schellen is taking back over for Scott Connor on the next one.

[Drone Decipher]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Gone All The Way on the last World Trade album is a Sherwood/Schellen/Moraz(?????) song.

Edit: And I think it's a really good Billy song.

[JMKUSA]

Correct me if I'm wrong but Gone All The Way on the last World Trade album is a Sherwood/Schellen/Moraz(?????) song.

Edit: And I think it's a really good Billy song.

Really? Schellen wasn't on Unify so that doesn’t make sense to me. I think most of the songs were Sherwood/Gowdy compositions, although I could be wrong. Hard to find that info online.

[downbyariver]

Schellen wasn't on Unify so that doesn’t make sense to me.

You're correct that original drummer (from the first, self-titled, album) Mark T. Williams returned for World Trade's third album, Unify. Jay Schellen had been the drummer on their second album, Euphoria , when Mark was unavailable.

Other than the drumming changes, World Trade's lineup on all three of its three albums was otherwise the same in terms of the named band personnel.

It's of course possible that Schellen wrote or co-wrote one or more songs on the albums he wasn't on, which could include Unify (Stuff like that does happen- Geoff Downes has a co-writing credit on Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe's "Brother of Mine", for example, despite having never been near that group. It stems from his contributions to the portion of the song Steve Howe had worked up with him in Asia or GTR sessions a few years prior that never made it into a song on an album for whatever band they originally were working on music for.). I bought the Unify download, so I don't have liner notes, and the AllMusic page for the album doesn't have writing credits.

I will say that the press release for Unify (Which was released in 2017) really seemed to gone in on it being the first full reunion of the band since it's the first album nearly 30 years prior, skipping over all mention and carefully not even alluding to the fact that there was a second album in between the two (Though it never actually said Unify was the group's second album, it was just careful not to say it was the third. So it was technically accurate.). In that context, it'd be kind of weird if they used a song co-written by the band's drummer for the second album they were kind of ignoring, but you never know (The A from ABWH kept saying it was to return to the pre-Rabin 70s Yes, and yet contacted Trevor Rabin asking him to write songs for the second ABWH album [Ultimately, there was no second ABWH album, because the band was folded into Yes. Some of the material intended for that second ABWH album that never was did make it onto Yes' Union album in some form, though).

I don't think they had any issues with Jay Schellen or were really trying to erase him from the band's history. Certainly, we know that Billy Sherwood has worked with him a ton in a lot of different projects both before and after Unify, including some projects where Billy was running the show and issuing the invitations. I guess the marketing people thought just focusing on the first album to promote the third album was a good idea, or maybe there were some sensitivities from Williams about there having been an album without him.

Just found the discogs page for Unify after typing all that but before hitting "Post Reply". It says the album was written by Billly Sherwood and Bruce Gowdy. I don't know anything about that site or how reliable it is or isn't, though.

I guess to really be sure, we'll have to have someone with the CD who has the real liner notes chime in (Why bands generally don't provide PDF liner notes with download purchases is beyond me).

For what it's worth, my guess is that is in fact all Sherwood and Gowdy and not Schellen writing the songs on Unify, but I'm open to anything. I wouldn't be shocked if that guess was off.

[Ceasar’s Palace]

On the topic question: After familiarising with the current album: I’ve no idea.
The writers within the band have each given us bad and good songs over the last albums. I don’t have a preference anymore.
Maybe Schellen could surprise us?

[Drone Decipher]

You're correct that original drummer (from the first, self-titled, album) Mark T. Williams returned for World Trade's third album, Unify. Jay Schellen had been the drummer on their second album, Euphoria , when Mark was unavailable.

Other than the drumming changes, World Trade's lineup on all three of its three albums was otherwise the same in terms of the named band personnel.

It's of course possible that Schellen wrote or co-wrote one or more songs on the albums he wasn't on, which could include Unify (Stuff like that does happen- Geoff Downes has a co-writing credit on Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe's "Brother of Mine", for example, despite having never been near that group. It stems from his contributions to the portion of the song Steve Howe had worked up with him in Asia or GTR sessions a few years prior that never made it into a song on an album for whatever band they originally were working on music for.). I bought the Unify download, so I don't have liner notes, and the AllMusic page for the album doesn't have writing credits.

I will say that the press release for Unify (Which was released in 2017) really seemed to gone in on it being the first full reunion of the band since it's the first album nearly 30 years prior, skipping over all mention and carefully not even alluding to the fact that there was a second album in between the two (Though it never actually said Unify was the group's second album, it was just careful not to say it was the third. So it was technically accurate.). In that context, it'd be kind of weird if they used a song co-written by the band's drummer for the second album they were kind of ignoring, but you never know (The A from ABWH kept saying it was to return to the pre-Rabin 70s Yes, and yet contacted Trevor Rabin asking him to write songs for the second ABWH album [Ultimately, there was no second ABWH album, because the band was folded into Yes. Some of the material intended for that second ABWH album that never was did make it onto Yes' Union album in some form, though).

I don't think they had any issues with Jay Schellen or were really trying to erase him from the band's history. Certainly, we know that Billy Sherwood has worked with him a ton in a lot of different projects both before and after Unify, including some projects where Billy was running the show and issuing the invitations. I guess the marketing people thought just focusing on the first album to promote the third album was a good idea, or maybe there were some sensitivities from Williams about there having been an album without him.

Just found the discogs page for Unify after typing all that but before hitting "Post Reply". It says the album was written by Billly Sherwood and Bruce Gowdy. I don't know anything about that site or how reliable it is or isn't, though.

I guess to really be sure, we'll have to have someone with the CD who has the real liner notes chime in (Why bands generally don't provide PDF liner notes with download purchases is beyond me).

For what it's worth, my guess is that is in fact all Sherwood and Gowdy and not Schellen writing the songs on Unify, but I'm open to anything. I wouldn't be shocked if that guess was off.

Months ago while bored I was digging through the internet archive on Henry's site and found this from mid 2008. Looks like I invented Moraz's involvement, but here's some details on that song. There's more in further updates that says Psy-Op never happened and all the songs got repurposed and rerecorded.