TWELVE INCHES ON TAPE

"YES goes to the Disco!".

I listened to this cassette in 1985. It was lent to me by a friend.

This kind of products with "remixes" and "extended versions" of songs also released as singles were not new in the eighties. I remember that in the late seventies, with the Disco Music fad, these products were very popular among the fans of Disco Music, which was a musical fad specially designed to be danced in Discotheques around the world.

I read in "Pete Frame`s Complete Rock Family Trees" book (1993), in his Family Tree for Asia, that Geoffrey Downes and Trevor Horn, while playing in Tina Charles Band for a time (she being a Disco singer!), and before and during their time as members of The Buggles, they really were Disco Music producers who recorded singles with unknown singers and released them under several bands` or singers ` names. So, for me, in 1985, it was a bit strange to find that YES released this cassette, but years later, after reading the history of Downes and Horn, it wasn`t so strange after all! So, Trevor Horn, being the producer of YES`"90125" album, also produced these special "remixes" of YES ` material to be played and danced in Discos around the world. I think that the record label, having these hit singles from YES, also wanted the "Disco treatement" for them.

Apart from having the album version of "Owner of a Lonely Heart", this cassette has "remixes" / "extended versions" of this song and "Leave It". All I can remember from these versions are the danceable arrangements and added sound effects. I was a bit disappointed in 1985 to listen to YES `music done that way, but...anyway, it was the eighties then, and several Prog bands produced more commercial music to survive, being adviced by their record labels and managers.

I remember that in the end credits of the "9012LIVE" VHS concert video there is a version of "Leave It" done with drum machines in the "extended version" / "remix" style. I think that this version of "Leave It" was also released in this cassette, but now I can`t say if it`s true.

For collectors only and for big fans of YES`music from their "90125" and "Big Generator" albums.

It finally occurred to me that I could actually listen to my copy of Twelve Inches on Tape, even though it is, as the title says, on tape: my car has a cassette player.

From the 12-inch (dance) single of Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart," Twelve Inches on Tape includes the "Red and Blue Mix" of "Owner," and from the the 12-inch single of "Leave It," the tape includes the "Hello, Goodbye Mix" and the single edit (called "Leave It (Remix)" here). The last track on Twelve Inches on Tape is the album version of "Owner of a Lonely Heart."

The "Leave It" single mix is interesting, although it doesn't vary much from the album version, so the dance mixes are the attraction here. Neither is a run-of-the-mill 1980s "extended dance mix;" both are recreations of the songs, apparently achieved mainly through playing samples from the originals on a Fairlight synthesizer over a dance beat similar to the original song. The artist of the "Red and Blue Mix" is really not Yes, but engineer Gary Langan and programmer Jonathan Jeczalik, whose work on this mix led to their creation of the avant-garde ensemble the Art of Noise. (Similarly, Langan, Stephen Lipson, Stewart Bruce, and Chris Squire (and probably Jeczalik, though uncredited), are the parties responsible for the "Hello, Goodbye Mix.")

Thus I judge Twelve Inches on Tape not as Yes music, but as sample-based dance music. As such, it is good but not outlandishly so; this may be partly because the creativity of Langan, Jeczalik, and company was restricted by the fact that these tracks were released under another the name of another artist (Yes). While later artists, including the Art of Noise, would take sample-based music to new heights, Twelve Inches on Tape still has historical value as an early work in that genre.

(For what it's worth, neither "Leave It (Hello, Goodbye Mix)" nor "Owner of a Lonely Heart (Red and Blue Mix)" are currently in print, as far as I know. A mix of "Owner" similar to the "Red and Blue" appears on the 2004 Rhino remaster of 90125, as does the single edit of "Leave It.")