"Rating 5/5... Excellent playing, engaging melodies and arrangements, warm production… what more could you ask for… except for more? Beautiful." (ProgressiveWorld.net)

Spinning is an expansive mandolin-scape in 7/4. Hypnotic, with lots of reverb, delay, and hand percussion. After I finished it, I actually thought to myself "this may be the coolest thing I've ever recorded."

InstruMental Breakdown is a hoedown with multiple personality disorder. It can't decide if it wants to emulate Aaron Copland, Buddy Rich, or P-Funk. Very high style-per-minute change rate.

Waiting was the first piece I recorded for this album. It's mostly based around a cute melody between violin and nylon-string guitar. I tried to make the piece 'breathe' as best I could, and included ye ole golden mean high point when congas & bass enter, then recess.

Flute and Percussion Improv was kind of an interesting concept - I really didn't know what the structure or speed of the piece was going to be (hence the 'improv') - I just had a general idea of a few of the phrases I'd build it around, and that I'd want hand percussion with it. To be able to synch the hand percussion to the improvised flute, I tapped my foot on an old mic on the floor when I recorded the flute part. This acted as a metronome for the overdubbed percussion.

Great Scott! is named for Kirk Scott, a fantastic jazz guitarist. It's vaguely done in his style, though I'm sure not as well as he could have done it! The form is the typical jazz form (head, solos, head). The head has lots of chords, so it's a real challenge to play. (The only other tune I wrote with so many chords is "Slowly as the Lights..." from 'Out of the Ashes.')

12:00 and All's Well is a classical guitar piece I wrote a while back, but I could never get a satisfactory recording. After countless attempts, I finally got 'the take...' on the third session, at midnight (of course).

Tragic Scene from Some Movie is a violin feature that's just as epic as I could possibly make it (in sound, not length). My brother-in-law (and good friend) Manna and I were sitting on the porch one day, and he asked how I go about writing a melodies. I picked up the guitar and started rambling, "choose a couple of chords, then pick a time signature, think of language phrases in your head to overlay..." and came up with the melody. Manna demanded that I record it on my mini cassette recorder. I totally forgot about it for months. Eventually, I ran across the tape, and thought "hey, that's pretty good," and epic-ed it out! I usually try to let melody guide accompaniment style choice, and this one just begged to be on some huge stereo in surround sound in a theater... I keep hoping I'll get to hear it on one of those systems someday. [Note 2007: Sammy Applegate made an award-winning 35-mm short film set to this song in 2006, so although I didn't get to see it in a theater (arrgh!!), some people at a film festival in Utah did in fact see the song as I originally hoped it would be presented!]

Lotus' Land II is the follow-up to the last track on 'The Beginning of a New Day.' I always liked Lotus' Land and thought my catalog of tunes could use more material in that style. So, I essentially ripped myself off to create this tune.

Squirel is a bass feature, backed by a simple piano part. No, I didn't misspell "squirrel," it's named for my favorite bassist, Chris Squire. Chris plays with a pick and comes up with these amazing countermelodies - he really takes the bass part beyond thickening the overall sound to becoming an integral part of the composition, and the more people emulate his way of approaching music, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

The Water's Edge is a very laid-back "end of evening" tune - acoustic guitar, nylon-string guitar, and mandolin. Simple chords, but a relaxed effect similar to what I might feel like sitting at the edge of a calm lake at sundown. Okay, so I know that's a bit cheesy, but that's the stuff that inspires me!