Relayer

After Rick Wakeman left, the four remaining members rehearsed at Farmyard Studios in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire, and invited around eight keyboard players to audition. Vangelis was one of them but proved non-committal. Chris Welch suggested the Swiss keyboardist Patrick Moraz of Refugee. He arrived in the first week of August 1974, played a piece of "And You and I" for the audition, and was asked to write a section for the middle of "Sound Chaser".

Relayer was recorded at Squire's home, New Pipers in Virginia Water, where the garage was being converted into a studio. It was the first Yes album recorded outside London. Offord brought a 24-track machine and a desk, and the mixing was done at Advision. Anderson wanted outrageously different directions and was influenced by the electronic music of Stockhausen, though his idea of fully free-form music was rejected by the others.

"The Gates of Delirium" runs about 21 minutes and drew on Tolstoy's War and Peace. Anderson called it a war song, with a prelude, a charge, a victory tune and peace at the end. The crashes in the battle section were made from metal pieces and car parts that Anderson and White collected at a scrap yard, and White pushed over a tower of them. The peaceful ending became the single "Soon". "Sound Chaser" brings jazz fusion and funk to the band, and Howe described it as a mixture of Moraz's jazzy keyboards and his own flamenco-flavoured electric guitar. "To Be Over" began with a melody Howe had sung to Anderson, and Moraz wrote his solo out as a counterpoint, exactly like a classical fugue.

The cover is by Roger Dean, worked up from a watercolour he made in 1966 at the Royal College of Art, and Anderson took the title from the messenger imagery of its riders. The album reached number four in Britain and number five in the United States, and the RIAA certified it Gold on 18 December 1974. Chris Welch called it one of the most successful and satisfying Yes albums in Melody Maker. Billboard called it another nearly flawless effort.