There are no lyrics but every one of Donna Grantis' song titles has a story. She explains a few of them.
"Trashformer": She found an old, bent cymbal at Groth Music in Bloomington. "I really like the sound of it; it was really trashy," she recalled. "I was thinking: 'What would I love to hear [Pearl Jam guitarist] Mike McCready play over?' I was putting the cymbal stand together and I noticed the cymbal was called Trashformer. At that moment, that riff — like a lightning bolt — came to mind and the song was written."
"Elsa": The piece was inspired by the song "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter Group, with its different sections. "I thought to myself: It's the bride of 'Frankenstein.' I looked it up and [her name was] Elsa" — Elsa Lanchester, star of the 1935 movie.
"Diamonds & Dynamite": "I was thinking about highs and lows, ups and downs, the tumultuous times in 2016 [when Prince died] combined with the happiness of having a child. To me the song reflects both sides of the spectrum. Compositionally, there are two very different sections."
"Master Manifester": "I was texting with a friend and she was talking about the changes she wanted to make in her life and she said she wanted to be a master manifester. And I thought, 'Can I take that title?' What I was manifesting was the visual of me playing a ton of funk lines that I'd learned so much about over the past few years."
"Lioness": "I was reading [her son] Koen a children's book about what animals are called. For example, lion, cub and lioness. That was super-inspiring. That led to 'Lioness,' which starts off kind of experimental with a lot of strange sounds. It's brooding and, by the end, it's pretty heavy rock riff. The visuals of that, I think about a lioness."
