This 6-song demo was recorded a few month after ANACRUSIS had broken up and was in preparation for a 2nd TRIBES WITH KNIVES album. TRIBES WITH KNIVES were close friends of ANACRUSIS and I had recorded/produced their 1st and 2nd demo.

The demo was recorded in the basement of the bassist's home on an 8-track cassette multitrack recorder. I was living there at the time and this was also where the band rehearsed.

I played several shows with the band around the St. Louis area doing mostly back-up vocals and rhythm guitar on their existing material, and also singing lead on a couple songs from their 1st demo. I had already written and recorded a few new songs when we began to put together material for a 2nd TWK album. Among the songs we tracked were 3 of my new songs. We felt that only "Kingdom of Spring" fit with the band's style, so the other two songs were never completed. Later, after TWK split up, I recorded my own versions of these songs ("Anew" and "The Telling Skies") along with my own version of "Kingdom of Spring".

During this time there was also another line-up change. Brothers Eric and Jason Miller had replaced the guitarist and drummer from the YOU MAY SAFELY GRAZE album and had played several shows with the band. Just before this demo was recorded Eric left the band. Mike Henricks, a close friend of mine who had done both the "I Love the World" and "Sound the Alarm" videos for ANACRUSIS also played guitar on the demo, though he never performed live with the band.

At the time of these recordings the line-up was:

Adam Marfisi - Vocals/Guitar
Michael Dorlac - Bass
Kenn Nardi - Vocals/Guitar
Jason Miller - Drums
(though a drum machine was used for the demo)
Mike Henricks - Guitar (not pictured)

There was much uncertainty regarding what direction the band was heading in at this time, with Michael and me wanting to continue in current style of the band, and Adam wanting to integrate heavier elements, simialr to ANACRUSIS' style. Having just broken up ANACRUSIS, I was happy to stretch out a little musically and step aside as "front-man" in TRIBES. We eventually decided to explore a 2-vocalist style, more in the vein of PINK FLOYD. Rather than trading vocals song to song, we decided to have one sing the verse and the other sing the bridge/chorus and sometimes have both overlap. This is the approach we took on this group of songs.

I did contribute musically, but not lyrically to these songs, choosing instead to leave that up to TWK's chief lyricist, bassist Michael Dorlac. "Kingdom of Spring" was a combination of my music and Michael's lyrics, with Adam coming up with much of the vocal melody. "Erasing the Father" was another collaboration with Adam's and my music, Michael's lyrics only this time, I wrote most of the vocal arrangements. This is the only song where I sing the main verses. "Caressing Clock" was mostly Adam's music, Michael's lyrics and my vocal melodies. Adam and I also shared lead guitar duties with me doing solos on "Erasing the Father", "Kingdom of Spring" and the 2nd solo on "Hidden Once".

"Hidden Once" was a song originally recorded for (but not included on) the 1st TWK demo in 1990 with some additional music written by me. "Lavender Ceiling" was a re-working of a song from the 1991 "Splintered Feminine" demo and "Blossomed" was a re-arrangenged version of a song from their 1992 "Head of a Greyhound" demo.

Shortly after these recording were finished, the band decided to fianlly call it a day. With TRIBES WITH KNIVES broken up, these songs were never performed live.

These are songs which were recorded both before and after the TRIBES WITH KNIVES demos were recorded.

In early 1994, I continued to experiment with sequencing keyboard/orchestral arrangements. Among the 1st things I recorded were versions of a few of the more melodic ANACRUSIS songs including "Afraid To Feel", "What You Became", "FarToo Long" and "Release" just to see how they would sound with some of the new elements we had used on the "Screams and Whispers" album. I had toyed with the idea of re-working some songs live more in the style of "Grateful" or "Too many Prophets" for future performances. At that point, we were not certain that there would not be another ANACRUSIS album or that the band was permenantly broken up. I later abandoned these recordings before any vocals were recorded.

As it became clear that ANACRUSIS was over for good, I began to write new material. I wasn't sure whether I would form a new band or not, but what I had in mind was something incorporating acoustic guitar, heavy guitar, and heavy bass and drums with full orchestral accompaniment. I had envisioned sort of a metal-Moody Blues, which would take much of what we had begun on "Screams and Whispers" and expand it into an even more melodic realm.

These songs were all recorded in 1994-1995 basement using an 8-track cassette multitrack recorder using a drum drum machine and sequenced "orchestral" arrangemnets sequenced on a KORG X3 with me on all guitars, bass and vocals.

The 1st song I had written was "Watching Through Darkness". The original demo was recorded with standard tuning, but later when I re-recorded it along with the other songs I used a drop-B tuning like we had used in ANACRUSIS.

The music for "Anew", "The Telling Skies" and "Kingdom of Spring" had all been written before the TRIBES WITH KNIVES demo was recorded, and though drums and guitar tracks were recorded for all three songs, only "Kingdom of Spring" was completed and included on that tape.

"Stop Me" and "Afraid To Feel" were both new arrangements of songs from our 1990 album REASON. I had always liked these songs, but was less than thrilled with the way they had turned out on the album.

"Kingdom of Spring" includes TRIBES WITH KNIVES bassist Michael Dorlac's lyrics and vocalist/guitarist Adam Marfisi's vocal arrangements as recorded on the TWK demo, though on that version Adam sang the main verses.