After Steve Howe’s (relatively) restrained performance on his previous solo album (1999’s Portraits Of Bob Dylan) the dawn of the millennium found the Yes/Asia man in more expansive mode on his 2001 follow-up album Natural Timbre. His first ever entirely acoustic studio project, this album features 18 tracks stitched together by a wide array of stringed instruments to serve up an equally diverse oeuvre that takes in blues, classical, country, jazz and progressive rock. Masterly, yet easily accessible, Natural Timbre found Steve Howe at a creative peak…and playing like it, too.

Instrumental music can often “speak” in a way that vocalised music can’t. Aside from the fact that vocals can turn off as many people as they turn on, the absence of a singer creates room for the listener to infer their own meaning and that can often create a more interactive experience. The result is a more evocative sound, and that’s precisely what Natural Timbre serves up. Each of these tracks is akin to a photograph that captures a sense of time and place, and along with the instruments chosen and Steve’s playing, creates a feeling of being in the world. That becomes immediately obvious on opening track ‘Distant Seas’. Employing a koto and Kohno classical guitar, ‘Distant Seas’ magically transports us across oceans to fill your mind’s eye with visions from the Far East. Later the album takes us back to 17th Century England via Dowland’s ‘The Little Galliard’ (played on a guitar dated 1834) whilst betwixt we get some Big Bill Broonzy-styled picking on ‘Intersection Blues’. It’s an approach that could sound eclectic in other hands and what really stitches this album together is Howe’s signature style. That’s not to say he’s generic, far from it, as each of these tracks has its own unique feel but in no matter what guise Steve appears his tone (timbre?) is instantly recognisable in the same way as, say, Dave Gilmore, Mark Knopfler or Adrian Smith.

Closing with three Yes songs, Steve makes his guitar sing (quite literally), using his acoustic to take on Jon Anderson’s vocal lines. Likewise, two steel guitars replicate the vocal parts during ‘Disillusion’ before Steve unearths a real treat as a finale; ‘To Be Over’ gets its first airing since 1975 and it’s welcomed like an old friend, and with the tenderness such an acquaintance deserves.

Carefully remastered and released on CD and on vinyl for the very first time, Natural Timbre is an album that found Steve Howe at his best…and it’s never resonated better.

• Natural Timbre is released via HoweSound/Cargo Records on 12th September 2025.
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Track List:

1. Distant Seas
2. Provence
3. Intersection Blues
4. Family Tree
5. J’s Theme
6. In The Course Of The Day
7. Dream River
8. Golden Years
9. The Little Galliard
10. Up Above Somewhere
11. Curls & Swirls
12. Pyramidology
13. Lost For Words
14. Winter, 2nd Movement
15. Solar Winds
16. Your Move
17. Disillusion