way beyond by tranceport

Recorded July 1994 to March 1997.

This was Tranceport's tenth album.

Go To (1996) was supposed to be Tranceport's final album, but changed personal circumstances meant we would continue against the odds to make music, although those same circumstances meant that the band would never be so prolific again. This album took nearly three years to complete.

The album's title reflects the fact that we were way beyond where we expected to find ourselves, in uncharted territory. I'm not sure we ever did find our way back.

In the album art the dreamers who imagined riding to the stars on the incredible machines of Tranceglobal (1992) find themselves lost in the desert on horseback.

Mars (Osu) was originally intended as a track for the Chung Kuo album of 1994, but space restraints excluded it. Other tracks were recorded in parallel with Go To, but we always knew these tracks needed a different home. Where Chung Kuo and Go To both had coherent themes, Way Beyond is more varied and probably our most dangerous and confrontational album.

We were experimenting with the relentless beat of four to the floor, designed to induce a trance-like state akin to meditation. The musical progressions that characterised much of our other works were subdued and played a supporting role to a more aggressive stance.

It was the one and only time the band would sound like this.

Like all musicians I wished I had the same number of limbs as an octopus. My wish was granted, but not in the way I had hoped for. My cephalopod partner is an enthusiastic volunteer from the worldwide animal charity Save Humans From Themselves. We share a special kind of love.