Ah...Sonata. Two years had passed since the release of Avogadro's, and the band had officially become "starving artists." Balancing day jobs with a busy gig schedule (all booked by Smith, Happel, and Daniels) and the rigors of managing a band turning into a business were taking their toll on the Gravity boys. The growing pains were in full force, but slow, consistant progress kept the group inspired. Cliff Lazenby joined the team as official manager of the group during this period and helped out wherever he could, whether it was knocking down the doors of clubs in his home of NYC trying to get gigs, or utilizing his law firm's fax machine (he was a paralegal by day) for TTG's benefit (DOH!).

Regardless of the struggle, the band was able to dive into the deepest material Happel had written to date, and with a new approach to recording that was made possible by the generosity of RACK owner/engineer Tim Janis was able to take well over a month to put to tape their most ambitious effort to date, Sonata Brutalle. The change in direction that Wyman brought on board is most readily apparent here, and his aggressiveness was only expanded upon with the first appearance of electric guitar on any TTG record, played by Smith. Happel's unique writing style began to finally come to full bloom here as his slant for the political nuances of previous tunes turned to reveal a very personal reflection of some universal themes of life and love.

One of the most incredible aspects of Sonata is the artwork; in this case Mike Parnham, aliased as Michael Ferreaux, went far beyond the call of duty, completely immersing himself in the music, and pulling out of that bath an incredible artistic endeavour that ties the material of Sonata Brutalle into a cohesive work of art; visual and audible.

Jon Altschiller, who had first heard the band's Avogadro's Number while engineering Phish's Nectar, jumped on board and brought with him an immense talent for engineering and mixing, and a limited amount of pro studio time at the luxurious JSM studios in NYC. From this partnership was born two tracks that landed on Sonata, and Jon ended up re-mixing the entire album when the band realized it couldn't do it on it's own. What resulted was a sonically "interesting" record; two tracks were pro quality, the other thirteen, while not sonically perfect, did have a certain charm. All this, from an independent band with no industry support whatsoever (with the important exception of the band's new lawyer, a partner at the monolithic firm of Grubman, Indursky, et al.) began to really turn heads.

The album was voted 1994's number 1 release by The Portsmouth Herald and the Seacoast Times. Also, the band recieved their first radio support when 'Infinity Christmas' was put into full rotation by local heavyweight commercial station WHEB. The CD was also sent out to over 500 college radio stations in the band's first major nationwide radio campaign. Indeed, the ball was rolling and the momentum was accelerating Thanks To Gravity towards orbit.

Click the song title for printable lyrics.