5 Flags

The follow-up to Music for Piano and Drums is more along the lines of what fans might have expected the first time around. Flags features Moraz's augmenting his piano work with his Kurzweil synthesizer; a fuller production with overdubbing, and more structure. Still, to contrast purely anthemic tracks like the opening "Temples of Joy," Bruford and Moraz offer moments of pure improvisations, including the driving "Split Seconds" and "Infra Dig," which is based around a challenging theme but ultimately evolves into a more free-flowing exploration, with Bruford's light cymbal work and strategically placed shots providing interesting counterpoint to Moraz's more flowing lines. Again the chemistry between the two is clearly evident.

Flags is a 1985 album by the duo Moraz and Bruford. Unlike their prior effort Music for Piano and Drums, which featured only an acoustic drum kit and grand piano, this recording expanded their musical palette by including a Kurzweil 250 synthesizer and electronic percussion…

In 1990, when most of the original members of Yes were working under the name Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe for legal reasons, Jon Anderson recorded a batch of demos for what would have been the second ABWH album. When the band reunited with Chris Squire under their original moniker, the ABWH project was abandoned, and the songs fell between the cracks. This collection preserves those demos as a part of Yes history. The arrangements are fairly bare-bones, mostly electronic, but one can imagine the elaborate sonic garments of the Yes men being draped over the skeletons of these songs without too much effort.