Mike: I remember we were in the control room having just finished listening to the playback of the basic tracks for "Another Dimension" and John says, "That`s great but we need something REALLY SICK for this album!". After shaking our heads thinking that all of the songs so far were sick, we went back to our instruments and wrote this one in about 2 hours!!

John: This one was played on a 7-string guitar. The main riff uses a technique combining pull-offs with right hand muting to achieve a fast percussive attack. The unison lines are some of the fastest and most difficult parts we`ve written! Hats off to Mike on his furious drum performance as well!!

Jordan: The clock was counting down on time left in the studio. Finally the moment came when it was do or die for this "burner". It was like grab your iunstrument and "let`s do it!" This piece was written in the identical manner in which it sounds. A blazing fury of notes and ideas.

Mike: I love this tune...Jordan brought this one in to us in a kind of "Latin-vibe" form. By the end of our working on it as a band, it somehow ended up sounding more like Yes meets Steve Morse meets Phish...The title has an interesting story as well: During the writing of this tune, John was taken to the hospital (unbeknownst to me and Jordan who were wrapped up in the the song`s arrangement at the time!!) for extreme headaches...(a common occurence while working on an LTE album...) The medicine prescribed to him....Biaxin, of course!

John: The guitars on this songs were recorded live to Mike`s drum tracks with all the efffects coming from my rig and printed to tape. Most of the other songs were done as overdubs, one sound at a time with delays added during mixdown.

Jordan: There was some kind of Latin musical bug that was hangin` around at these sessions. I originally thought for sure that I was the only one that was going to present a progressive rock-meets-Latin concept for this recording. Funny enough, in one of the first days we were together, John comes forward and announces he also has a "cool Latin-vibe" happening.

Tony: I used fretless bass on this piece for a change of sound. First LTE CD I`d used a wide array of instruments, including Funk Fingers, but wanted to focus the range this time around - the mellow beginning of "Biaxident", though, begged for some fretless.

Mike: One of DOZENS of improvised jams recorded by Jordan, Tony and myself while in the studio "waiting for John" after his duaghter was born...If you dig this, there is a LOT more where it came from...

Mike: This was the very first idea we jammed on when we gathered to begin the LTE2 sessions in October. We ended up not getting back to finishing it until the November sessions...This song has some truly heavy moments in it. (That ending!!!) Yet somehow, we still found a way to fit in handclaps and an accordian solo!!!

John: This one is one of my favorites because it demonstrates the hybrid nature of LTE. The mixture of heavy, sinister riffs, Latin feels, and complex time signatures makes this a fun and challenging one for me.

Jordan: There is a part in this song that I think is worthy of the "timing madness award" for 1999. A brain scan should be done to LTE members as they perform the particular section that keeps changing from 6/8 to 5/8 in bizarre patterns. I`m going to talk to the other members about having the LTE listener award for whoever writes in with all those meters notated correctly.

Tony: Back to the Stick, with a little `real bass` (the only bit on the album) in what I call the accordian/reggae section. While writing was going on, I was often to be found in the lounge, uploading my digital photos of the sessions to web site for interested surfers to see. Sometimes, I`d come back into the studio to find a complex line had been created, which I was to double. Time to practice.

Mike: We wouldn`t be a "real" progressive band if we didn`t have our 20-minute (well, almost!) epic piece now would we?!? This one was written over the course of 4 days and ended up being the only "real" composition written during the October sessions...John had to leave on the 3rd day because of the "the water breaking", which left the three of us to wrap up the writing without him...

John: It was the birth of my little angel, Kiara, that inspired the title of this one! An alternate title could have been "Keeping up with Jordan". The Tony Levin driven Cm jam is among some of my favorite moments.

Jordan: There is a particular riff that appears at both the beginning and end of this song that I originally wrote with the idea that it should sound like an extremely progressive Dream Theater riff a la Metropolis or something like that. Of course that was written before I actually joined DT and before the LTE2 sessions began. The baby soundscape in the middle is LTE`s sonic history marker for the section we were working on "when the water broke".

Tony: This is an epic! The notes for all the sections would look like "War and Peace". Suffice it to say that the Stick saw me through the piece, with some help from ring modulation. I did not envy John, having to catch up on some of the sections after the fact. The end product, though, was worth it.

Mike: Another improvised jam from the LTE2 trio sessions. This is very interesting because what you are hearing is Jordan, Tony and myself completely improvising and then, months later, John took the tapes and learned all of Jordan`s improvised riffs at the top and bottom of the piece and then doubled them...giving the "illusion" of written composition!

John: Pat Thrall digitally engineered the guitar overdubs on this one. I have to thank him for his patience during this process. Using Pat`s Pro Tools system, we were able to experiment with some digital manipulation of the guitar tracks.

Mike: Yet another improvised jam from the LTE2 trio sessions...however the big difference from "Chewbacca" in the guitar department is that John actually improvised his overdubs live (with the exception of Jordan`s improvised progression at the top of the piece which John learned). So John is actually "jamming" with us...(only months later!!). A big thank you goes out to the makers of NyQuil for this one: I was feeling a bit of a cold coming on, and downed some of "the big f***ing Q" shortly before beginning this jam. Obviously, it kicked in by the end of the jam!!! I don`t know if I ever would have been able to lay back this much without the help of it!! It also provided Tony with the space for him to lay down some of the coolest-ass bass lines that make him the legend he is...

John: This is an example of a computer generated guitar tone. This stereo sound, effects and all, was recorded once again with the help of Pat and Pro Tools I think the chord changes are beautiful and the Peter Gabriel type groove at the end is genius.

John: Old strings and wee-morning hours couldn`t stop this one. It was recorded as a live duet in the spirit of "State Of Grace" from LTE1. I believe the version on this CD is the second take. I feel the intimacy and the mood was really captured here. The mixture of classical and jazz changes make this one both interesting harmonically and melodically moving to me.

Jordan: After everything else is finished, John and I push for a few more hours in the studio to create our duet. We are deliriously tired, but happy...We settle in to the main studio with an acoustic guitar and my piano keyboard and the Millbrook recording sessions come to a gentle closing.