Wishbone Ash
Trance Visionary

A rare and unique case in the history of musical bands, the heralds of melodic rock tinged with folk and progressive, Wishbone Ash, can boast, within their abundant discography, even a couple of techno dance albums.

It was towards the end of the last century, and the rather troubled story of the Desire Ash Bone group was facing yet another complication: it was a bad time for classic rock, excessively mortified by the drastic, stubborn, ridiculous rush to grunge with all the economic resources of the insiders.

Leader Andy Powell, guitarist, the only musician stubbornly remaining from the founding members of the group, thus creatively diversifies, teaming up with producer and electronic wizard Mike Bennett to create this “Trance Visionary,” essentially a computer elaboration in a decidedly techno, drum & bass key, whatever you wish, of certain passages of the Wishbone Ash repertoire, supported here and there by actual performances with traditional instruments by the quartet of musicians of that time.

It seems that this work, besides naturally leaving all the Wishbone fans bewildered at the time, indeed became a hit in dance circuits around the world, especially in native Great Britain.

As a fan and good connoisseur of the music of this band, being at the same time uninterested in any electronic dance music or mind-numbing disco music, I find listening to these tracks interesting, having fun recognizing, under the electronic layers and the addition of obsessive rhythms, chit-chat of who knows who, etc., the original Wishbone scores.

What intrigues me in particular is everything involving the elaboration of one of the group's most historic tracks, that “The Pilgrim” masterpiece from their second career album “Pilgrimage,” which in its first part offered an obsessive, dizzying arpeggio of intense suggestion. The album in question is also heavily “plundered” on its opening track “Jail Bait,” and this can only please me, being one of Wishbone's most accomplished, bizarre, and seductive pieces.

The music flows smoothly and is always evolving, continuously losing and gaining rhythm, adhering to the necessary criteria of dance trance, without pauses of silence between the various tracks mostly replaced by airport announcements or the like. Between Mike Oldfield-like synthesized loops, drum & bass grooves alternating with phases where real bass guitar and drums work, one spends a good hour getting dazed (if the volume is set to ten and one does nothing else but possibly sway) or, at modest volume, enjoying the background as a soundtrack while doing something else.

This techno, house, trance disc released in 1997 will soon be followed by another similar one entitled “Psychic Terrorism,” then there will be a gap of a few years fortunately followed by the copious, splendid activity of the 2000s, once again featuring excellent melodic rock blues folk embellished with double lead guitar, the unparalleled peculiarity of this quartet.