Asia

The season of art-rock peaked with the supergroups of the late 1970s, of which UK was the most important. It consisted of keyboardist and violinist Eddie Jobson (Roxy Music), guitarist Allan Holdsworth (Nucleus), bassist John Wetton (Family and King Crimson), and drummer Bill Bruford (Yes). UK (Polydor, 1978) featured the suite In The Dead Of The Night. Bruford and Holdsworth left before Danger Money (1979), the others disbanded after that album. While technically impeccable, their songs displayed little emotion and sounded a little dated, as far as progressive-rock went.

Wetton, after working on the solo albums Jacknife (EG, 1979) and Caught In The Crossfire (EG, 1980), joined a new supergroup, Asia, that featured drummer Carl Palmer (EL & P), Steve Howe (Yes), and Geoff Downes (Buggles). Asia (Giffen, 1982) offered a mixture of heavy and soft rock (Heat Of The Moment)

Alpha (1983) and Astra (1985), without Howe, were pure routine. Wetton also worked on Wetton Manzanera (Geffen, 1987) with Roxy Music's Phil Manzanera.

Then & Now (1990) contains a selection of songs from the first three albums ("Then") and some new songs ("Now").

Asia reformed (but without Wetton) to release the indecent Aqua (JRS, 1992) and only Downes was left of the original founders on Aria (1995) and Arena (Resurgence, 1996).

In the meantime bassist John Wetton, relocated to California, launched his solo career in earnest with Battle Lines (Eclipse, 1994), Chasing The Dragon (Eclipse, 1995), a selection of live performances, Akustika (Blueprint, 1996), an acoustic selection of his old material, and Arkangel (Eagle Rock, 1997), the first real studio album since 1994. Wetton then flooded the market with several live albums and with Chasing The Deer (Blueprint, 1998), Hazy Monet (Blueprint, 1998), Monkey Business (Blueprint, 1998), Welcome To Heaven (Avalon, 2000).

In 2000 Wetton, Carl Palmer, keyboardist John Young and guitarist Dave Kilminster formed Qango. John Wetton & Geoff Downes (Stallion, 2001) also collaborated on a new album.

Then the original lineup reformed Asia for Phoenix (2008), Omega (2010), XXX (2012) and Gravitas (2014).

Few bands have wasted so much talent in such a shameless manner.

John Wetton died in 2017 after releasing the solo albums Voice Mail / Battle Lines (1994), Arkangel (1997), Welcome to Heaven / Sinister (2000), Rock of Faith (2003), and Raised in Captivity (2011).