Trance to the Sun (1990–present) is a neo-psychedelic post-punk band originally based out of Santa Barbara, California. The band consists of multi-instrumentalist Ashkelon Sain (born Gregory Lloyd Sain) as the primary songwriter, performer and producer, and has featured three full-time vocalists—Ingrid Blue (also known as Ingrid Luna - born Ingrid Justina Holden) (1997–present), Dawn Michelle Wagner (1997), and Zoë Alexandra Wakefield (1993–1996). Trance to the Sun recordings have often included guest contributors, and tour line-ups have usually included one or more additional musicians. Currently, the band consists of Ashkelon Sain, Ingrid Luna, and Daniel Henderson, with additional live musician Terry Luna on bass guitar.
Trance to the Sun has had a considerable impact on the dark wave, gothic rock and post-punk music scenes in the U.S. and abroad. Mike Ventarola of the internet radio station Hidden Sanctuary described Trance to the Sun as "one of a few select bands from that part of the world whose previous compilation appearances, CD’s and tour dates read like a who’s who for the goth underground. Despite the multiple band lineup changes over the years, the core group remained tenacious and steadfast. They are applauded and adored by fans worldwide because they haven’t sold out to the corporate mindset looking for the one hit wonder of the week. Instead, they created a legacy of music that is at once entertaining as it is intelligent."
Also noteworthy is the band's productivity. Between 1993 and 2002, Trance to the Sun released 7 studio albums, one E.P., and one live concert album, and toured the U.S. five times. As of April 2014, 25 Trance to the Sun songs have been featured on 23 artist compilations. Trance To The Sun halted the making of any new music in 2002. During the band's inactive period, the band released three compilations including previously released and unreleased material, and two remastered albums. The Ingrid Blue version of the band reunited for a one-show reunion performance in 2007.
In 2013, Trance to the Sun reformed to tour and release their 8th studio album titled Via Subterranea, which was eventually released in 2016. In January 2014, the band performed live for the first time in 7 years, and for the first time in support of a (forthcoming) studio album in 13 years.
Early years (1990–1993)
The origin of the name Trance to the Sun was explained by Sain in 1995. "Our music is for the nocturnal environment, delivered in a trance-like state, made possible by the wealth of energy dealt to earth in the daytime by the sun."
Trance to the Sun began in 1990 as Ashkelon Sain performing solo electric guitar in Southern California. He received a favorable response to his first cassette release Volcano (1990) on his personal label Etherhaus, which was followed up by a second cassette release Dusk in 1991 on Etherhaus. Between 1990 and 1992 Sain also performed intermittently with the band This Ascension, and in 1991 started the band Blade Fetish with Matt Ballesteros of This Ascension and Mark Linder.
Sain recalled Trance to the Sun's beginnings in a 1995 interview with Morbid Outlook magazine. "The spirit of Trance to the Sun began in 1990 when I forewent [sic] convention and released a cassette called Trance to the Sun "Volcano" which consisted of nothing more than eight works played on electric guitar with a plethora of ambient, spacious effects. Another cassette entitled "Dusk" followed in 1991—one song-forty minutes. The last three tracks on our "Ghost Forest" CD are the culmination of that period, from one of about ten live performances I did around Santa Barbara and LA. There were some "off" periods in 1992 and 1993, where I was involved in Blade Fetish and This Ascension."
The Wakefield Period (1993–1996)
Ghost Forest
Blade Fetish broke up in 1992, reformed in 1993 and toured the U.S., and then parted ways again. During the break, Sain began recording new songs on his 4-track with his then-girlfriend Wakefield, and recording his live performances. Sain recalled the time in a 1995 interview. "Stepping down from the rehearsal and performance rigors of [Blade Fetish and This Ascension], I went back to work in my studio. Then I heard Zoë sing...."
Tess Records signed Trance to the Sun in 1993 and the band released Ghost Forest, a collection of Sain's live and studio recordings, on cassette later that year. Additional musicians included Wakefield on vocals in “Cauldron Street” and "August Rain V.1", and guest contributions by Dave Stein on keyboards, and guitar by Kevin Serra of This Ascension on the track "August Rain V.1".
The European branch of Tess Records requested a CD version of the Ghost Forest. With the intent to raise the fidelity of the recording, a partially re-recorded version of the album was submitted for release on CD in 1994. Sain would eventually remaster the original cassette version for re-release on Below Sea Level Recordings in 2012. Glenn Petteys, who had also toured with Faith & the Muse and Blade Fetish, performed live with the band in 1994 in support of the album.
"Bloom Flowers, Bloom!"
In early 1995, Trance to the Sun released "Bloom Flowers, Bloom!" with Sain recording or programming instruments and with Wakefield in a more established vocalist/lyricist role. Alternative Press noted that the album "incorporates elements of experimental, goth, ambient, and rock into an ethereal stew, emphasizing cyclical trance structures around which the various elements interweave. Zoë's vocals are often indiscernible, which can be a bit frustrating, but it's the aural quality of her voice that is more important, acting as another instrument and not just a vessel for lyrics, which here are dream-like in their flow and not bereft of meaning."
To support "Bloom Flowers, Bloom!", Sain and Wakefield toured the U.S. with the band Lycia with additional musician Israel Medina performing bass guitar. During one of these shows, Lycia vocalist Mike Van Portfleet lost his voice, and Sain filled in for vocal duties.
The band was very close with Lycia and enjoyed their time on tour together. Sain: "We set up a show for [ Lycia ] to play with us in Santa Barbara. They invited us to play a show with them in Phoenix. Mike is so swell and helpful. I knew I wanted to tour with them and so did he. By the time our west coast shows rolled around, our respective record companies were booking us a joint national tour....
"Mike lost his voice toward the end so I did my best to sing for them in Atlanta. I felt I had done terribly but afterward, all these people came up to me saying, 'I've loved you since Ionia.' I also wrote a bassline for their song Nine Hours Later, which they invited me onstage to play at several shows."
Also during this tour, Trance to the Sun played C1, the first annual floating Convergence festival, in Chicago, Illinois. The band also began appearing on artist compilation albums at this time.
Despite frequently being considered as part of the gothic rock genre, Sain did not view the music as such, though he did credit its listeners with discovering many noteworthy bands: "Goth is an important doorway for lots of things that would not be accepted easily anywhere else. For example, who were the first people to embrace the Sugarcubes? Goths. And now we have a megastar of Björk. Pixies 1988? Gothic audience, not fratboys. Einsturzende Neubaten walked in through the "gothic" door—Miranda Sex Garden—Cocteau Twins. It's no wonder nobody can agree on what "Gothic" means... depth and dissonance and polite confrontationalism are quite possibly the only denominators.... I just like to play interesting music. It just so happens to be the 'goths' who are listening."
"I like good goth music a lot and I do see a certain connection in our music to goth but I've never had any inspiration to be like somebody else or to go in a certain style. I have my own ideas and if they ever too closely resemble something that I've heard before, I usually discard them."
In 2020, Sain remastered the album for re-release on Below Sea Level Recordings, including four additional tracks from the era—Live versions of "A Moon Short Stay Cure", "You So You" from Zoë Wakefield's first live performance, "Clown Small & Even", and "Crystalize & Slant" which first appeared on a German compilation.
Venomous Eve
Venomous Eve, which was already being recorded prior to the release of "Bloom Flowers, Bloom!", was released in late 1995. The album relied heavily on the Morpheus synthesizer manufactured by E-MU Systems, and credited its performance to Lucian S. Donato as a third member of the group.
Sain commented on the experience of gaining a third member in a 1995 interview. "I do work the shit out of my electronic equipment but there's got to be live instruments and a lot of depth as well.... It's been a long, evolutionary process, but I think it's safe to say that we are now a threesome. We've taken on a keyboardist named Lucian, who is really quite a bizarre character. He fits in as though he was always there, it's strange."
Venomous Eve was the best-received Trance to the Sun album to date. Dave Segal of Alternative Press wrote: "Trance cast off the crutches of conventional song structure and bask in a shimmering miasma of tweaked and freaked guitars, synths, violins and bass... These nine long songs move with knight-like stealth and elegance, wreathed in all manner of bizarre noises..." Albany, NY's Music Advocate wrote that "Venomous Eve is fog-shadowed walks through perfumed night gardens, and languorous waltzes in cold-orb lit tower ballrooms set to brooding gothic-shrouded atmospheres." Venomous Eve took off on American college radio, achieving the rank of No. 1 most played album on San Francisco area radio station KFJC in March 1996.
On August 29, 1996, Wakefield left the band on the day before the band was to open for Love Spirals Downwards in San Francisco, California. Trance to the Sun had been opening for Cindytalk earlier in the year, and Sain asked Gordon Sharp (Cindytalk, This Mortal Coil), who was visiting Sain at the time, to sing in her place. Robert Alonzo, who had just joined the live line-up on drums for the first time in the band's history, played only one earlier show with the group prior to Wakefield's departure.
In 2021, Sain remastered the album with an expanded 16 page booklet featuring photos and history from Trance to the Sun's inception through the Venomous Eve era for re-release on Below Sea Level Recordings.
The Wagner Period (1997)
Delirious
Sain enlisted Dragonqueen vocalist Dawn Wagner, who had opened for Trance to the Sun during the Cindytalk tour, as a replacement for Wakefield in 1997. The two released the E.P. Delirious later that year, where Sain also performed some vocal duties. Gary Thrasher of Outburn Magazine wrote:
"Always at the forefront of experimental goth music, Trance to the Sun don't appear to have even slipped a notch after the departure of vocalist Zoe Wakefield.... With a voice that can swoop from the cloudy heights of Cocteau Twins' Liz Frasier down to the sexually charged growl of Switchblade Symphony's Tina Root, Dawn brings a whole new feel to the band. Ashkelon steps up to show he has an excellent voice as well on "Sympathy For Cruel Causes.""
A U.S. tour in support of the release followed with bassist Israel Medina, from which Medina was eventually removed and replaced with Ashe Ruppe and Mark Blewett was brought in on drums. After the tour, Wagner left the group to focus on her new project Scarlet Slipping, for which Sain recorded and mixed two albums. An outtake from this period, "Winter Furnace Winds", appears on Spiders, Aether & Rain.
The Blue Period (1997–2002)
Azalean Sea 1998 1997 1996