“Endless Journey,” a thrilling little space-rock number by ANT-BEE, begins appropriately enough: With a countdown and then a rocket launch. The unmistakable tone of Peter Banks’ guitar floats by next — and it’s a transfixing moment, above and beyond the other spooky sounds that follow, from a trickling keyboard to these otherworldly humpback whale calls.
Banks, guitarist with Yes over its first two albums in the late 1960s (Yes and Time and a Word), recorded his parts some time ago as ANT-BEE, led by drummer and producer Billy James, continued work on the just-releasedElectronic Church Muzik — its long-awaited followup to 1994′s Lunar Muzik. More recently, Banks has suffered through a series of health problems that diverted a planned U.S. tour in which early Yes songs were reportedly to be performed by Banks and the band Ambrosia.
His relationship with James (drummer on Steve Vai‘s ’93 debut Flex-able) includes their co-written book Beyond and Before, a comprehensive retelling of Yes’ early years, and you can sense that symbiosis on this standout track.
It’s funny, though. “Endless Journey” is not necessarily representative of this new ANT-BEE project, which more often follows the avant-garde template created by Frank Zappa — and elsewhere includes both “Living,” originally on Alice Cooper‘s 1969 album Pretties for You; and Todd Rundgren‘s 1974 cut “Don’t You Ever Learn” featuring Napoleon Murphy Brock on lead vocals. Too, those looking for the extraordinary flights of daring that Banks displayed on Yes’ cover of the Beatles’ “Every Little Thing” from its 1969 debut, or the brilliant “Lifetime” from Flash’s overlooked 1972 gem In the Can, won’t find those kind of pyrotechnics, either.
And, really, there’s more to ANT-BEE than Peter Banks. Boy, is there: James’ group is actually a floating amalgam that also includes members of Zappa’s original Mothers of Invention band (Don Preston, Bunk Gardner, Buzz Gardner, James “Motorhead” Sherwood and the late Jimmy Carl Black appear elsewhere), Rundgren’s Utopia (Moogy Klingman), Alice Cooper’s original group (Michael Bruce) and Captain Beefheart‘s Magic Band (Zoot Horn Rollo and Rockette Morton) as well as Brock, who also played with Zappa in 1970s, among others.
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