1st June 2021. YES guitarist Steve Howe has announced he is to release the seventh edition of his Homebrew album series on 30th July via HoweSound. Homebrew 7marks the 25th anniversary ofthe guitar legend’s first album in his Homebrew collection. Pre-order the album here: https://cargorecordsdirect.co.uk/products/steve-howe-homebrew-7
The Homebrew series typically features recordings from Steve Howe’s home archive of demos and tracks, originally recorded for one of his many solo or group projects with YES, ASIA, ABWH or GTR. Homebrew 7differs slightly as none of the tracks have previously been released in any form and there are no plans for any to be rerecorded in the future.
“Many are things I’ve enjoyed saving until the right moment,” says Howe, “and the Homebrew series allows this. Some tracks have matured with my nurturing but others have been recently rediscovered.”
This collection includes tracks from the late seventies through to 2016 in Howe’s extensive range of playing styles. Each of the 21 tracks is dated and accompanied by Howe’s background notes and details on instrumentation. Most of the tracks are Howe’s solo recordings with occasional contributions from Dylan Howe and Virgil Howe on drums with Phil Spalding on bass guitar (Half Way). The booklet includes the lyrics for the four vocal tracks and is also illustrated by some of Howe’s delightfully atmospheric photography.
Homebrew 7
Track Listing:
1. The Glider (2015) Time: 1.37 2. October (1998) 1.56 3. Half Way (1997, 2009 & 2015) 3.49 4. The Only One (2013) 1.26 5. In One Life (1982) 2.41 6. Outstanding Deal (1982) 3.21 7. Be Natural (2013) 1.47 8. Cold Winds (1983) 2.38 9. Deanscape (1982) 2.21 10. Tender Hooks (2015) 2.06 11. A Lady She Is (1982) 4.12 12. Two Sided (2013) 1.45 13. Strange Wayfarer (2016) 3.00 14. Devon Girl (1983) 2.42 15. Safe Haven (2015) 1.31 16. A Matter Of Fact 1986) 17. Touchstone (2015)1.58 18. From Another Day (1979) 1.47 19. Foregone Conclusion (2015) 1.58 20. Space Void (1978) 1.05| 21. From The Get-Go (2015) 1.49 Total Running Time: 49.41
All titles written, arranged, engineered and produced by Steve Howe with additional drums by Dylan Howe and Virgil Howe.
Legendary Yes guitarist Steve Howe has announced he is to release Love Is on 31st July through BMG Records. Love Is is Howe’s first solo album since the all-instrumental Time in 2011 and has a balance of five instrumental tracks and five songs.
The album will be available as CD – gatefold digi-sleeve with 12 page booklet and LP – Black vinyl 180gm with gatefold sleeve, liner notes and lyrics. Link to Steve Howe Official store pre-orders: https://SteveHowe.lnk.to/D2CPRLink to Amazon pre-orders: https://SteveHowe.lnk.to/LoveIsPR
Steve Howe sings lead vocals and plays electric, acoustic and steel guitars, keyboards, percussion and bass guitar on the instrumentals while Yes vocalist Jon Davison provides vocal harmonies and plays bass guitar on the vocal tracks. The album also features Dylan Howe on drums.
Many years in the making, Love Is brings together a consistently strong and polished listening experience, forging the very best from the writing and playing throughout the album. This may well be considered the real ‘stand out’ album of Howe’s solo career. The instrumentals keep a highly progressive rock guitar style to the fore, with songs that explore stories of lives lived and lives only just begun. Love Is A River is the central longer song with several textural shifts, featuring a theme played on 12 string and steel guitars.
“I called the album Love Is because it hints at the central idea that that love is important but also love of the universe and the ecology of the world is very important,” says Steve Howe. “Alexander Humboldt went around the world and recognised we are destroying the planet but that was 200 years ago! We are still destroying the planet and, I suppose, my songs show the yearning I have for the love of nature and how beauty, art and music all stem from nature. There is a theme about those things, love, beauty, ecology, nature and wonderful people.
“Love Is A River just seemed a very important track to me, a sort of quintessential track with lots of moods, lots of interesting things going on with steel guitars and acoustic guitars. Further tracks grew from time spent writing in my studio. “See Me Through looks at the idea that we get through life by not driving ourselves that hard but attempting to achieve things with people who help you along the way and Imagination is dedicated to my granddaughter Zuni. It’s about how I see some of the things she’s experienced in her short seven years.”
“I invited Jon Davison to sing harmonies with me and add bass on the songs. If he was singing on the songs I thought why doesn’t he play bass as well and it turned out nice. He’s been with Yes for seven or eight years and he’s a great guy, great performer and a great interpreter of Yes songs.“I’ve been singing for years, mainly in harmony but I’ve sung lead on lots of my own albums before and I feel that, as I’ve got older, I’ve got a grip on that and, hopefully, it’s improved over the years.
The album includes many distinctive Steve Howe signatures among the instrumental tracks from the delicate beauty of Fulcrum, Beyond The Call and Pause For Thought to upbeat rock, The Headlands, and the jazz-tinged Sound Picture. “The instrumentals are like a mood, a place I went to one day, thought this is nice and then I develop that to a point where it’s a finished track. There might be key ingredients that I thought about using musically that I like, that I’m drawn to, and then developing them into something.”
Love Is was written, engineered and produced by Steve Howe with further engineering and mixing by Curtis Schwartz. “I write in my own studio and then go to see Curtis in his studio,” Howe explains. “We expand the tracks and put them on Pro Tools and everything starts to be possible. At some point, probably around 2 years ago, Dylan came down to Curtis’s studio and we recorded the drums on some of the tracks. I could see a balance of five instrumental tracks and five songs and there was a feeling that it was an album, sitting there, looking at me.”
The track listing for Steve Howe’s Love Is album is:
1 Fulcrum (instrumental) 2 See Me Through 3 Beyond The Call (instrumental) 4 Love Is A River 5 Sound Picture (instrumental) 6 It Ain’t Easy 7 Pause For Thought (instrumental) 8 Imagination 9 The Headlands (instrumental) 10 On The Balcony
CD Catalogue No. 538608592 Gatefold Digi sleeve with 12-page booklet with liner notes by Steve Howe & lyrics LP – Catalogue Number – 538608601 180gm Black vinyl in Gatefold sleeve with liner notes by Steve Howe & lyrics
YES is excited to announce that drummer Alan White, who had to sit out the band’s recent U.S. summer tour due to back surgery, will officially rejoin his band mates Steve Howe (guitar), Jon Davison (vocals), Billy Sherwood (bass) and Geoff Downes (keyboard) on their Japanese tour this November. Jay Schellen, the band’s good friend who sat behind the kit all summer, will also travel to Japan and sit in until White is fully healed.
“I’m greatly looking forward to getting back on stage with my bandmates to play YES music once again for our devoted audiences” says drummer Alan White.
The 6-date trek, beginning November 21 in Tokyo, will feature YES performing the 1973 album YESSONGS, the band’s first live album, as well as sides one and four of 1973’s double album TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS, which received rave reviews throughout their 28-date U.S. outing this summer. Of the Tales portion of the show, Chicago Tribune Community Contributor Raymond Britt raved, “The pieces were nothing short of a tour de force of musical ambition, complexity and remarkable synchronicity. It sounded outstanding.” Britt also added, “This version of Yes seems to play at a higher level, a more powerful level, like they’ve been together a decade or more. These guys are on no nostalgia tour. They play it like they mean business, with little intention of slowing down” (8/31/16). For their upcoming Japan tour, YES will perform at the Tokyo Orchard Hall on November 21, 22, 28 and 29, the Osaka Orix Theater on November 24 and Zepp Nagoya on November 25./
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YES is excited to announce that drummer Alan White, who had to sit out the band’s recent U.S. summer tour due to back surgery, will officially rejoin his band mates Steve Howe (guitar), Jon Davison (vocals), Billy Sherwood (bass) and Geoff Downes (keyboard) on their Japanese tour this November. Jay Schellen, the band’s good friend who sat behind the kit all summer, will also travel to Japan and sit in until White is fully healed.