Courtesy of Magna Carta Techno prog What: Mark Gage's new album, Sonic Residue From Vapourspace. Release date: Tuesday, Feb. 5. Web: www.magnacarta.net.

By Jeff Spevak
Democrat and Chronicle

(January 31, 2002) -- To paraphrase the late, great Charles Bukowski's attitude about cops, it's not that Mark Gage doesn't like guitars, but he just feels better when they're not around.

Oh, Gage defends what he's done to the guitars on his latest album, Sonic Residue From Vapourspace. ''You may not be hearing things that sound like guitars,'' he says. ''But they're definitely there.''

Yes, some have survived. Others have been pushed through electronic filters so that they sound like keyboards. Self-indulgent solos have been slashed, gelded like old boars.

Pushing the buttons of progressive rock seems an unlikely gig for Gage, the South Wedgie who records and mixes techno albums under the name Vapourspace. He's had a national -- actually, global -- reputation since the 1994 release of his atmospherically grand debut, Themes From Vapourspace, and the critically lauded, ambient composition ''Gravitational Arch of 10.''

On the yearlong remixing project that became Sonic Residue, Gage had at his disposal the entire prog-rock lineup of Magna Carta, the East Rochester-based label now home to some of your favorite '70s prog-rockers. That roster includes Explorers Club, featuring Yes guitarist Steve Howe.

Steve Morse, who played with Deep Purple, makes an appearance on Sonic Residue. The Stevens of Bozzio Levin Stevens is none other than Steve Stevens, the raven-haired guitar punk and one-time Billy Idol sidekick on sneering classics such as ''Rebel Yell.''

What strange brothers, these two, Magna Carta and Gage. Prog rock is the dinosaur of popular music, an overly large creature seemingly inbred to the point of doom. Techno is the sound of today, mercurial, sharp as a blade.

The result is not exactly electronica. And not exactly progressive rock. ''It may not jell with all of the technoheads,'' Gage concedes. ''Which is not my concern.''

Although Gage has used eight different acts as his source material, Sonic Residue From Vapourspace -- good headphones music -- actually feels like a conceptual work, with one piece often drifting into the next.

The reworking of Niacin's ''Blue Mondo'' is typical of what Gage has done. The opening spacey atmospheric whoosh, reminiscent of Gage's early work, remains faithful to Niacin. But he's pulled solos from the original's thickly layered mix, emphasizing odd leaps from prog-rock to blues organ to ELP-style keyboards, a genre-hopping that demonstrates there's more going on than prog rock gets credit for.

''Progressive rock is all about playing as many bits as you can within a measure, whereas techno is more about being minimalist," Gage says. "The progressive sensibility, not that it's wrong, but one of the reasons it doesn't jell with what's happening now is they have to learn to kick back. Everyone knows they can play.''

The groan of Tony Levin's bowed bass solo caught Gage's ear in the midst of Bozzio Levin Stevens' ''Dark Corners,'' so he pulled that out and slapped it down as the first thing you hear. Otherwise, the piece remains as creepy as a song by art-proggers King Crimson -- a band in which Levin plays the basslike Chapman stick.

Liquid Tension Experiment's ''Another Dimension'' is Gage's most intriguing construction. He has jumped on the original cut's unlikely accordion to create a cinematic vision by adding environmental sounds; a subway arrives at the station, the doors open, a small accordion-led band is heard, the listener climbs from the subway station into the traffic outside.

Kansas vocalist Steve Walsh seems to like what's going on here. ''He was definitely very into it,'' Gage says. ''He also sent me an Easter e-mail, saying 'Happy Easter.' ''

That's for resurrecting his song. In its original form, Walsh's ''Kansas'' is a mess, ambitiously rooting through '70s rock, paying tribute to the likes of Queen. But can one artist's work be the raw material for another artist's creation?

The truth is, all recordings are tweaked and manipulated before you hear them. Many pop and hip-hop recordings today are studio constructions. Gage has merely taken the idea as far as it can go, given today's technology.

''My attempt here was to make a Vapourspace record,'' Gage says. ''It definitely bears my stamp, no two ways about it.''