Spirit of the Mind

This is the fourth album in the Mountain Castle Collection of music. As with the other CD’s, I am not concerned with keeping the music confined to a particular genre or trying to target a specific market of listeners. These songs are again new original material.
The album was very fun to record and seemed to come together very easily with minimal preproduction before the actual recording sessions. Chris Wonzer is the lead singer on five of the six songs, and it is great working with him. Gretje Angell brings her jazz background to the vocal on Right In Your Heart.
I tried to give each of the soloists enough space to have fun, yet contribute their own unique ideas to the song. I enjoyed working with Peter (sax), Mike (lead guitar), Winston (keyboards) and Guido (keyboards) and listening to their ideas on their solo contributions. None of the musicians were given much musical directions about the songs, except the key of the song. We did very minimal takes and on most of the individual solos, they nailed their parts in one or two takes. I wanted a more natural, live feeling in the solos. I particularly enjoyed Mike’s ideas and his guitar solos really enhanced the flavor of The Streets Are Changing, The Wind Mansion Song and the Bumble Gum Man. At first I was slightly hesitant about adding his heavy sound to this type of music. After Mike’s first solo, I knew he was a perfect fit for this project. Mike’s musical sound and the energy he brings are a great contrast to my guitar playing and that of the sound of Peter’s soprano and tenor saxophone solo’s. We seemed to hit a groove with this current lineup of musicians. I hope you enjoy this CD as much as we did recording this material.

Musicians
Mikio Sankey: Lead & rhythm guitar, Composer music & lyrics (all songs except Country Girl, co-composer with Edwing), Producer
Edwing Sankey: Lead guitar & Co-composer Country Girl
Chris Wonzer: Lead vocals (all tracks except 4), backup vocals (all tracks),
drums (tracks 3, 5)
Peter Assing: Soprano Saxophone (tracks 2), Tenor Saxophone (tracks 1, 3, 4, 5 & 6)
Paul ILL: Bass (all tracks)
Dan Potruch: Drums (tracks 1, 2, 4 & 6)
Gretje Angell: Lead vocals (track 4)
Mike Albert: Lead guitar (tracks 1, 5 & 6)
Winston Raval: Synthesizer, electric piano (tracks 2 & 4)
Guido Consoli: Synthesizer (tracks 3 & 4), organ (track 4)
Hector Quintanilla Galvan: Timbales/Cowbell (track 2), Congas (track 3)

Credits
Chris Wonzer: Recording Engineer, Remix Engineer, Producer
Recorded & Mixed at Mountain Castle Studio, La Tijera Village, CA
Recorded & Mixed at Paul ILL Studio, North Hollywood, CA
Rick Reynoso: Cover and Booklet design
Sandra Flores: Front Cover Photo