STRENGTH (2003)

Musicians Line-up:

Dan Baker - guitar: 1,8,12; vox: 7
Lora Bloom - words
Tom Burget - drums: 12
Kenny - electronics; vox: 5; guitar: 5,8
Mike LePostollec - guitar: 10
Steve Murtaugh - guitar: 2,3,4,6
Matt Stevenson - keys, electronics; bass: 1,8,9,11,12
Sean Wholey - drums: 2,4
And possibly featuring:
You - other sounds

Recorded & mixed by Matt
Except 2, 3, 5: Steve Murtaugh, and 4: Sean Wholey

Song Listings:

1: Hovoring sphere 2: Invocation 3: Skywire 4: Virus 5: Eos 6: We Talked 7: XY
8: homo guitarus 9: Spinning 10: His skin 11: What We Did At Work 12: Henry Miller

STRENGTH. The album is titled in reference to the major arcana tarot card of the same name. The card's image is of a woman riding or taming a lion. The woman represents Will and the beast, Desire. In Rider-Waite, the woman tames the beast, in Crowley, the card is titled "Lust" and she rides it. The connotation is of desires channeled by will towards the achievement of a higher goal.

This record came into existence because Lora and I didn't stop being Radio Eris when the first line-up of the band came to an end. It's a bit of a deck-clearing exercise, incorporating a pair of LOSER-era recordings ("Invocation," a late-Steve-era set opener, and a live version of "Virus"), some Matt-Steve-Lora improvisations ("Skywire" and "Eos"), some LORALAI-style improv/collages, and two tracks ("Hovoring sphere" and "Henry Miller") featuring versions of the band that formed over this period of time and continues as of this writing. We had lost our founding guitarist Steve Murtaugh as well as the rest of the bands who'd formed before and after the BEAUTIFUL LOSERS album. Lora and I continued as a duo, then trio when Dan Baker joined on guitar. Matt split between bass and keys when Kenny took over the noise and electronics slot, and we worked with a series of drummers, including Ryan Grove, Tom Burgett, and Leslie Q, until we met Lisa Spera. This is the period documented by the STRENGTH album, which contains the last of the Murtaugh - Wholey axis, some relics from a drummerless trio recorded by Steve, some experiments with just the two of us, then similar with contributions from Dan and Kenny, and Tom Burget is unjustly represented by only one track.