YES: 1969 DEBUT ALBUM/A1 B1/AWESOME SOUND-NR MINT VINYL
£
34
$
45
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Description
YES
A brilliant debut
Labels: Atlantic brown/green: perfect, just a few light tracery spindle marks only really visible under bright magnification.
Mode: Stereo
Rarity: Very, in this condition
Original Year of Release: 1969
Catalogue Number: K40034
Outer Sleeve: Bagged into a PVC cover on purchase, the only time the vinyl has ever been out of its inner was when it was being played.
This shiny black Gatefold, normally found in a very sad state, is in superb condition, very little rub-wear and no feathering. Clean, bright and fresh with no marks and practically no storage or rub wear to the edges or square and rigid thick spine - where all the text is clear and bold. Even the slightly softened corners of the spine and the small label on each side don't detract from the fact that this sleeve is of amazing quality. In short, a fantastic example of this classic early gatefold sleeve - EXCELLENT+
Centrefold: Mint - fresh, clear and bright - no visible wear at all.
Inner: White
Insert:
Matrices: 588190 A//1 & B//1
Vinyl Weight: 120gms
Vinyl Condition & Grading: This LP was a revelation for me. It has been played sparingly and carefully on a Pioneer PL12AC, Thorens TD160, B&O Beogram 4002, Rega Planar and now the Linn, all fitted with high quality cartridges, of course.
There's not a mark on the vinyl to be seen! There's not a click, a tick, a pop or a crackle to be heard! Absolutely brilliant quality of audio; crystal clear, deep, rich and warm sound and loads of undistorted volume. There are no significant audio issues of note - no scratches, no skips or jumps and minimal surface noise - in fact, there are no issues at all. This early pressing is immaculate with very quiet dead vinyl tracking throughout and fantastic audio quality even in the very quiet passages. The playback is practically flawless with stunning warmth, depth and clarity and no groove-wear or distortion (I've taken really good care of it over the last 43 years). I grade this album NEAR MINT for audio. It's a fabulous copy of a groundbreaking prog LP and one that I can recommend highly to anyone.
Album Played For Grading: Yes. (Equipment: Linn Sondek LP12, Linn Ekos arm, Linn K9 moving coil cartridge, tracking at 2 grams into a Cambridge Audio Azur 340A amp and out to a pair of Bose speakers with a Super Woofer)
Album Tracklisting
1 Beyond and Before
2 I See You
3 Yesterday and Today
4 Looking Around
5 Harold Land
6 Every Little Thing
7 Sweetness
8 Survival
Yes' debut album is surprisingly strong, given the inexperience of all those involved at the time. In an era when psychedelic meanderings were the order of the day, Yes delivered a surprisingly focused and exciting record that covered lots of bases (perhaps too many) in presenting their sound. The album opens boldly, with the fervor of a metal band of the era playing full tilt on "Beyond and Before," but it is with the second number, a cover of the Byrds' "I See You," that they show some of their real range. The song is highlighted by an extraordinary jazz workout from lead guitarist Peter Banks and drummer Bill Bruford that runs circles around the original by Roger McGuinn and company. "Harold Land" was the first song on which Chris Squire's bass playing could be heard in anything resembling the prominence it would eventually assume in their sound and anticipates in its structure the multi-part suites the group would later record, with its extended introduction and its myriad shifts in texture, timbre, and volume. And then there is "Every Little Thing," the most daring Beatles cover ever to appear on an English record, with an apocalyptic introduction and extraordinary shifts in tempo and dynamics, Banks' guitar and Bruford's drums so animated that they seem to be playing several songs at once. This song also hosts an astonishingly charismatic performance by Jon Anderson. There were numerous problems in recording this album, owing to the inexperience of the group, the producer, and the engineer, in addition to the unusual nature of their sound. Many of the numbers give unusual prominence to the guitar and drums, thus making it the most uncharacteristic of all the group's albums. [Its first decent-sounding edition anywhere came with the 1997 remastering by Atlantic.]
Complete with PVC cover
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