Yes bets on remote recording and new label to reverse commercial decline

After a seven-year gap between studio releases, Yes has returned with its 22nd album, The Quest. The record marks the band's debut on InsideOut, a dedicated progressive rock label, following the commercial disappointment of 2014’s Heaven & Earth.

For a group with 53 years of history, reversing a downward trajectory requires more than just new music. Guitarist Steve Howe, who took over as de facto leader following the 2015 death of co-founding bassist Chris Squire, acknowledges the previous album's flaws. “I won’t keep this a secret any longer – I said to Roger [Dean, illustrator]: ‘The sleeve is better than the record.’” Keyboardist Geoff Downes is blunter: “We can’t deny that Heaven & Earth was not well received. It was a linear type of album; it lacked the dynamics of this one.”

The production of The Quest highlights a structural shift in how legacy acts can operate economically. Covid-19 lockdowns forced the band to record remotely, with members scattered across Barbados, Seattle, Los Angeles and England. Rather than a hindrance, Howe found the process creatively liberating. Downes notes this eliminates a major overhead for older bands. “One of the positives of the pandemic is that, for bands of a certain maturity, being together in a studio and thrashing it out is no longer mandatory,” he says. “We’re used to trading files and ideas.”

Aligning with InsideOut represents a strategic retreat from mainstream label pressures to a focused niche. “This is where we belong,” Howe says. “Thomas Waber [label co-founder] is hard to please, but the great thing about his company is that they give a shit. Just like us, they’re not farting around.” This targeted distribution model aims to maximize revenue from a dedicated fanbase without the overhead of broad marketing.

The remote workflow did introduce operational risks. The band had to retroactively credit Francis Monkman for the track The Ice Bridge due to similarities with his 1978 composition The Dawn Of An Era. Downes mistakenly took the idea from an old work tape. Furthermore, the band hired a 47-piece orchestra in Macedonia to record in a single day, relying entirely on trust in arranger Paul K Joyce to avoid costly re-recordings.

The stakes are high for the current lineup, which contains no original members. Howe admits some fans believe the band should not continue without Squire. “We are sticking our necks out with The Quest; it isn’t a given that it will be successful,” he says. By modernizing their production methods and aligning with a specialized label, Yes is attempting to prove that veteran acts can find sustainable, low-friction ways to produce new revenue.