- A 1974 prog-rock odyssey of chaos, beauty, and war
“Relayer” is where Yes tossed all safety nets aside. Released in 1974, it’s a storm of sound—part battle hymn, part meditation. Jon Anderson leads the charge, Steve Howe’s guitars duel like fencers in a cathedral, and Patrick Moraz’s wild keyboards slice through the air like jazz shrapnel. Produced by Eddie Offord and wrapped in Roger Dean’s monochrome dreamscape, this LP stands as Yes at their most daring—half chaos, half transcendence, all glory pressed into twelve inches of vinyl.
In 1974, the world of progressive rock stood at a crossroads. The countercultural optimism of the late 1960s had cooled into the introspection of the mid-1970s. Britain’s economic turbulence, energy crises, and industrial unrest created a darker, more introspective cultural tone. Against this backdrop, Yes—already one of the era’s most ambitious bands—released Relayer, a sprawling and experimental work that pushed even their own complex boundaries.
The progressive rock movement had reached its creative peak by this time, with monumental releases from Genesis (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), King Crimson (Red), and Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here approaching). These bands competed not only in musicianship but in vision—each album a statement of sonic architecture. Yes, fresh from the lush symphonies of Tales from Topographic Oceans, chose to strip their sound to a more abrasive, chaotic brilliance.
Relayer belongs to the golden age of British progressive rock—a genre that fused classical structures, jazz improvisation, and surreal lyrics into long-form compositions. Unlike American or German prog, British prog favored grand thematic concepts and philosophical overtones. Yes was part of this vanguard, alongside bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Camel, Gentle Giant, and Genesis.
While earlier Yes albums like Close to the Edge displayed ornate symphonic textures, Relayer took a more daring approach: it injected jazz fusion and avant-garde tension. The album’s centerpiece, “The Gates of Delirium,” unfolds as a 22-minute sonic battle that channels both chaos and transcendence, reflecting the band’s deep fascination with musical structure as metaphor for human conflict.
Musically, Relayer is defined by its dense layers and unorthodox time signatures. “The Gates of Delirium” was inspired by Tolstoy’s War and Peace, with sections of rhythmic warfare followed by a serene resolution in “Soon.” Side two shifts in tone: “Sound Chaser” is a whirlwind of fusion drumming, rapid-fire guitar lines, and Patrick Moraz’s frantic keyboards, while “To Be Over” closes the album with meditative beauty, offering release from the preceding intensity.
This constant oscillation between turmoil and calm mirrored the band's own internal dynamics—Yes was a group of perfectionists, pushing their creative process to near-collapse. The recording environment at Eddie Offord’s mobile studio in late summer 1974 was charged with pressure, experimentation, and improvisation. Each take could last hours; perfection was both the goal and the curse.
The album was produced by the band themselves alongside engineer Eddie Offord, often referred to as the “sixth member of Yes.” His sonic fingerprints—crisp clarity amid controlled chaos—had already defined Fragile and Close to the Edge. Keyboardist Patrick Moraz, newly recruited after Rick Wakeman’s departure, brought a fresh palette to the band’s sound. His background in Swiss jazz fusion gave Relayer its angular harmonic sensibility and kinetic keyboard passages.
Jon Anderson’s vocals carried the band’s mystical vision, while Steve Howe’s guitar work reached new levels of textural depth, ranging from flamenco flourishes to distorted feedback crescendos. Bassist Chris Squire anchored the chaos with his distinctive Rickenbacker tone, and drummer Alan White delivered percussive fireworks that fused power with precision.
By 1974, Yes had already seen several key changes. Founding member Peter Banks was long gone, replaced by Steve Howe; Rick Wakeman, after creative disagreements over the excesses of Tales from Topographic Oceans, departed mid-tour. His absence left a gap filled by Patrick Moraz, whose arrival marked one of the band’s most dramatic stylistic pivots. This version of Yes—Anderson, Howe, Squire, White, and Moraz—was perhaps their most daring, willing to fracture their own formula in pursuit of musical expansion.
The resulting sound was both exhilarating and divisive. Critics praised the band’s virtuosity but often questioned whether the complexity had overtaken emotional coherence. Yet for fans of progressive rock, Relayer embodied exactly what made the genre so compelling: fearless innovation, narrative depth, and instrumental brilliance.
Upon release, Relayer polarized audiences. Some hailed it as a masterpiece of controlled madness—a logical progression from Close to the Edge—while others found it impenetrable. The dense mix, abstract lyrics, and relentless technicality alienated casual listeners. Even within the band, tensions simmered: Wakeman publicly criticized the direction Yes had taken, dismissing the album’s experimentalism as self-indulgent. Meanwhile, die-hard fans embraced it as one of the most daring statements in Yes’s catalog.
The controversy only strengthened the album’s cult status. Over time, Relayer came to be recognized as the band’s most adventurous work—an audacious experiment at the peak of progressive rock’s creative explosion, just before punk and new wave would strip rock back to its bones.
Roger Dean’s gatefold artwork for Relayer remains one of the most iconic images in rock history—a monochrome dreamscape of towering stone and armored riders, reflecting both conflict and transcendence. It encapsulated the essence of Yes’s music: a fusion of the fantastical and the human, where architecture meets sound and imagination defies gravity.
Today, Relayer stands as a time capsule from 1974—a moment when rock dared to think symphonically, play fearlessly, and believe that sound could still build worlds. It was not just another Yes album; it was a statement that complexity and emotion could coexist, and that even amidst turmoil, beauty could emerge from delirium.
Snakes are coiled upon the granite.
Horsemen ride into the west.
Moons are rising on the planet
where the worst must suffer like the rest.
Pears are ripe and peaches falling.
Suns are setting in the east.
Women wail, and men are calling
to the god that’s in them, and to the beast.
Love is waiting for a lover.
Generations kneel for peace.
What men lose, Man will recover
polishing the brains his bones release.
Truth conceals itself in error.
History reveals its face:
days of ecstasy and terror
invent the future that invents the race.
Donald Lehmkuhl
October 1974
British Progressive Rock
British Progressive Rock of the 1970s blended symphonic structures, complex time signatures, and philosophical lyrics. Bands like Genesis, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer pioneered this genre alongside Yes, merging classical precision with rock experimentation and spiritual themes.
Atlantic Records – Cat#: ATL 50 096 (U) (Made in Germany)
Gatefold (Fold Open Cover) with artwork and photos on the inside cover pages.
Printed in Holland by Sherwood Packaging.
12" LP Vinyl Stereo Gramophone Record
Total Album (Cover + Record) weight: 280g
1974 – Made in Germany
Recorded on Eddie Offord’s mobile equipment in England during late summer and autumn 1974, a period that captured the band at their creative peak amidst a wave of experimental British rock innovation.
Advision Studios, London, England
Liner Notes by: Donald Lehmkuhl
Donald Lehmkuhl was a British writer and editor best known for his collaborations with Roger Dean—the visionary artist behind many of Yes’s album covers. Lehmkuhl co-authored The Album Cover Album (1977) and Magnetic Storm (1984), both richly illustrated books that explored fantasy art, surrealism, and science-fiction imagery in the context of music and culture.
He also wrote poetry and short prose in the 1970s, often published in connection with album artwork or Dean’s Paper Tiger imprint. The poem you found inside Yes – Relayer (dated October 1974) fits his recurring themes: myth, time, human struggle, and renewal.
Lehmkuhl wasn’t a musician but part of the Roger Dean design circle, providing the literary and philosophical backbone to the visual mythology that surrounded bands like Yes and Asia.
Brian Lane – Project Coordinator
Mike Allison – Paste-up & Graphic Preparation
Jon Anderson, born on 25 October 1944, in Accrington, Lancashire, England, is a British musician, singer, and songwriter. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the progressive rock band Yes, and has made significant contributions to the world of music throughout his career.
From a young age, Anderson displayed a deep passion for music. He started playing the guitar and honing his vocal skills while still in his teenage years. He became involved with various local bands, performing at small venues and events. This early experience helped him develop his musical abilities and establish a strong foundation for his future endeavors.
Anderson's musical talents expanded beyond the guitar and vocals as he also learned to play the bass and drums. This versatility allowed him to explore different aspects of music and develop a unique style that would later define his contributions to Yes and his solo career.
In the late 1960s, Anderson's career took a significant turn when he joined the progressive rock band Yes as the lead vocalist. His distinctive voice, characterized by its soaring range and emotional expressiveness, became one of the defining features of the band's sound. Anderson's lyrics, often inspired by spirituality, nature, and human connections, added a poetic and introspective dimension to Yes' music.
With Anderson at the helm, Yes achieved great success and critical acclaim. They released a series of influential albums, including "Fragile", "Close to the Edge", and "Going for the One", which showcased the band's virtuosity and progressive sound. Hits such as "Roundabout" and "Owner of a Lonely Heart" further solidified Yes' place in the world of rock music.
Anderson's tenure with Yes lasted for several decades, during which the band went through various lineup changes and creative evolutions. However, his distinct voice and songwriting style remained a constant, contributing to the band's enduring popularity and legacy.
In addition to his work with Yes, Anderson embarked on a successful solo career. He released numerous albums, often exploring diverse musical styles and collaborating with other renowned artists. His solo endeavors allowed him to further express his artistic vision and experiment with different sounds and genres.
Beyond his musical pursuits, Anderson has also been involved in various philanthropic and environmental initiatives. He is an advocate for peace and harmony, using his music to inspire positive change and unity among people.
When Rick Wakeman walked out of Yes in 1974—fed up with endless takes, spiritual detours, and vegetarian curry backstage—the band’s celestial machinery lost its most flamboyant pilot. Wakeman preferred fire and melody over mysticism and forty-minute movements.
Enter Patrick Moraz: a Swiss jazz-fusion storm who plugged his Moog into the chaos and sent *Relayer* spinning into uncharted space. His furious runs and angular harmonies turned the band’s polished cathedral sound into something more like a high-speed sonic labyrinth—proving that sometimes, the best way to keep Yes alive was to replace precision with madness.
The album cover of YES – Relayer is one of Roger Dean’s most haunting and intricate works of surreal landscape art. It portrays an immense stone canyon formed by towering, fluted rock pillars that curve and twist like frozen drapery. The formations rise impossibly high, suggesting both natural erosion and architectural design—half cliff, half cathedral.
At the center of the image, a narrow, arched stone bridge spans a chasm. Three armored riders on pale horses cross it cautiously, their figures minute against the monumental backdrop. They appear to be travelers in a dreamlike world, dwarfed by the grandeur of their environment, suggesting both fragility and heroism.
The composition is almost monochromatic, rendered in subdued hues of grey, ivory, and silver, with subtle shading that conveys light diffused through mist. The design’s stillness mirrors the introspective, symphonic sound of Relayer itself—at once serene, otherworldly, and charged with quiet tension.
The typography of the word Relayer appears at the top in stylized medieval script, while the band’s distinctive YES logo floats beneath it in gold and white. The entire image seems suspended between architecture, sculpture, and fantasy—an imaginative translation of the music’s fusion of precision, chaos, and transcendence.
The back cover of YES – Relayer continues Roger Dean’s vast and dreamlike world, now focusing on a quieter but more ominous scene. A coiled serpent dominates the foreground, its body thick and scaled in muted tones of brown and olive. Its head rises alertly, fangs bared, framed by the vast pale cliffs behind it.
The background is composed of towering geological forms that appear both carved by nature and shaped by architecture. Their fluted white surfaces and flowing ridges rise into an otherworldly vault, catching faint light that seeps through a jagged oval opening in the rock wall. The balance of shadow and illumination gives the composition an ethereal calm.
The serpent’s poised stillness introduces tension, an emblem of latent danger and the cyclical nature of struggle — themes echoing through The Gates of Delirium and the album’s lyrical dualities of peace and conflict. Dean’s restrained color palette of greys, creams, and earth hues connects seamlessly with the front cover’s world, completing the mythic landscape as a unified visual narrative.
Printed with the Atlantic Records catalog number ATL 50 096 (U) in the upper right corner, this back cover merges fine art precision with symbolic resonance, underscoring how Dean’s imagery became inseparable from Yes’s sonic imagination.
The left interior panel of the Relayer gatefold presents a carefully composed design blending photography, typography, and Roger Dean’s restrained fantasy aesthetic. The soft blue gradient background frames a sepia-toned photo of Yes’s lineup—Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Chris Squire, Alan White, and new keyboardist Patrick Moraz—relaxing together in natural light.
Above the image shines the metallic YES logo, followed by each member’s name in fine print. Below, the album title Relayer appears in stylized lightning-bolt typography, leading into the concise track listing and full production credits for Eddie Offord’s 1974 sessions.
Roger Dean’s small brown gryphon symbol anchors the bottom corner, maintaining the visual mythology that runs through Yes’s classic 1970s albums. This inside-left gatefold panel serves as both an informational page and a visual bridge between the record’s artwork and its music.
The right interior panel of the Relayer gatefold is serene and uncluttered, dominated by a gradient wash that fades from deep cosmic blue at the top to a gentle misty white near the bottom. Two faint moons drift in the upper right, lending a quiet planetary depth to the otherwise abstract expanse.
Centered on the page is a poem by Donald Lehmkuhl, dated October 1974, printed in understated serif type. Its verses speak of human struggle, cosmic cycles, and the tension between knowledge and faith — themes mirroring the album’s lyrical and musical explorations.
The absence of figures or structures gives this page a meditative stillness, serving as a poetic and visual counterbalance to Roger Dean’s intricate fantasy landscapes on the opposite panel. It transforms the gatefold’s right side into a moment of reflection within the broader visual symphony of Relayer.
The record label displays the classic Atlantic Records orange and green color scheme, with catalog number ATL 50 096 (U) printed along the perimeter.
Clear black typography lists the album title, band name, and track divisions. This label design was standard for Atlantic’s mid-1970s European pressings, prized by collectors for their distinctive layout and durability.
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Owner of a Lonely Heart Special Dance Remix 12" Maxi SingleReleased in 1974, Relayer is the seventh studio album by English progressive rock band Yes. The record marks the brief but influential tenure of keyboardist Patrick Moraz, whose jazz-inflected style pushed the group toward a more experimental, symphonic sound. Produced by Yes and Eddie Offord, it remains one of the band’s most ambitious works.
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