The story behind the origin of Gordian Knot and the Gordian Knot demos, 1996-1997
Why Now?
The first GK disc came out on March 5, 1999 — over 26 years ago at the time I’ve decided to do this. There are a couple of reasons, but the primary one is that sadly, no one else can tell this story and share these alternate versions but myself. When Sean Reinert passed on January 24, 2000, followed by Sean Malone later that same year on December 9, their passing hit me hard. Although my collaboration with them as musicians and time with them as friends was relatively short (1996 through 1999), it left a lasting impression that is something hard to describe, but I will try my best to do that. Some notes related to each demo song will follow this.
From 1994-1995, I decided to record some instrumental songs for a three-song demo called Reflections and promoted it as best I could. To my surprise, it wound up receiving lots of press and a coveted mention in the ‘Spotlight’ column in Guitar Player magazine, which for me and many others at the time, was considered the ‘holy grail’ of recognition for a guitarist. As much as I was studying science, my real passion was writing instrumental music and combining classical and heavy guitars into compositions, intentionally devoid of solos. John Demas from University of South Florida was my classical guitar instructor at the time, and I can’t ever thank him enough for introducing me to the world of classical guitar. It changed my approach to everything.
In 1996, I was pursuing a science degree at USF, the same university Sean was studying at for his master’s degree. I knew he also worked at a music store in town. Unfortunately, when I stopped in, he wasn’t there that particular day, but I was able to pass the cassette tape on to someone who knew him.
A few days later I got a call from Sean, who was very kind, mild-mannered and of course, very well spoken. He was intrigued by the demo, specifically that it was lacking solos and he appreciated the classical and heavy guitars’ juxtapositioning. He asked if I’d be interested in forming a three-piece, more fusion style project with Sean Reinert. After getting over my initial surprise and shock to hear this, I emphasized that if they wanted a fusion player to play lots of improvised solos, I probably wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. That wasn’t, and still isn’t my strong suit. He insisted that wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do, and so I took him up on it.
I had no idea what direction Sean wanted to go in or what ideas he had drafted, but we met up near the university and got to know each other over lunches at a pub nearby, his favorite hangout. He handed me a cassette with the preliminary ideas for ‘Shaman’s Whisper’ and ‘Singluarity’ — programmed drums with nice off-beat rhythms, accompanied by piano and keyboards he had done. The demos didn’t have any bass or stick lines, and I believe he wanted to see what I came up with to write to my ideas — a very gracious approach.
Right away I was hooked. I listed in the car on the way back home and had ideas going through my head immediately on how I could add to them. I’m a huge Kevin Gilbert fan. The beginning keyboards in the Shaman’s Whisper demo immediately reminded me of Toy Matinee’s Queen of Misery, but it had its own identity. It’s pretty rare that initial ideas like that immediately elicit a strong reaction like that for me, and I suspect that for most musicians, it’s what we’re all striving for — to capture the essence of that feeling in the form of initial draft ideas and ultimately retain that freshness and excitement all the way through to the ‘finished’ music.
His demo ideas of Singularity hit me just as hard, and I knew immediately that there was going to be something special about this collaboration, just from hearing this tape for the first time.
EVER — A Shaman’s Whisper, Singularity, Rivers and searching for a vocalist
I put down the heavy guitar ideas first for the two tracks, and some rough ideas for the clean guitars. We got together with our instruments and played the demo ideas for him. That followed up with sessions to write more ideas, him putting down stick and bass lines in person together between jam sessions at his house in St. Pete and my apartment in Tampa.
Then the commutes to Sean Reinert, and Sean Reinert up to us — that was roughly a weekend-long, monthly thing for a few months in a row, since it was a five hour drive each way. I appreciated all the in-depth conversations we had related to music, science, world events and all sorts of things. Sean also had a great sense of humor, and the drives were a good escape from the craziness of our work and school schedules.
Reinert was exceptionally kind, also funny as hell and a great person overall. We got along well, and those songs started coming together very nicely with real drums. To take breaks, I remember us all nerding out watching VHS tapes of King Crimson’s Live at Frejus show, discussing music in general and just having good conversation.
Rivers Dancing was the third tune we wrote. We started playing around with a version of Reflections and at one point, I believe Jason Gobel even was involved for a short time and practiced with us once but ultimately had other commitments. Nevertheless, it was great to be able to jam with three quarters of Cynic in person. That was the other mind-blowing thing — when we went out to restaurants near Reinert in Miami, people would recognize those two and couldn’t believe it. I was a fan of Cynic, but I had no idea how much that rhythm section was revered until I saw that happen first-hand.
At the time, Malone, Reinert and I were thinking vocals would be a good possibility for these tunes, since they were intentionally being written as foundations and not containing extended solos. Since Malone and I were both in the Tampa Bay area, we focused on finding someone there and kept Reinert informed. We did find some potential vocalists, but in the end, it didn’t quite match what we were looking for and we decided to keep writing songs. The idea for the band name was EVER, which is written in marker on the cassette demos for these songs.
Sean gave me a version of Redemption’s Way which I added the chunky guitars to on a demo. I won’t be sharing that out of respect for Sean, since he really was the sole composer of that aside from my repetitive guitar rhythm — those could have been left off the final track entirely. In the demo, they almost overwhelm the bass at times, and I think that could be the reason they were pulled back on so extensively in the final mix.
During the initial demo writing process and practices, the vibe we created was very much a foundational, rhythmic one, devoid of solos. We were writing the tunes to give them breathing room for vocals and solos were not even mentioned much or at all. I felt like the three of us were locked in similarly to some of the grooves The Police would have on their early work, or 80’s Crimson (what a surprise). It was very intentional on my part for certain, and Sean’s stick parts afforded the opportunity to really nail that syncopated approach. Reinert’s drumming just made everything that much tighter. But even the drum loops were so much fun to play along to together in this way.
While we were searching for a vocalist, we had Sean come up and record drums for the Shaman’s, Singularity and Rivers Dancing at Morrisound Studios in Tampa. That was another experience for me, knowing how famous a place that was.
I recorded my demo guitar parts at Sean’s place — he had a studio set up in his bedroom. At the time, he was living with his mother, and she was always welcoming, and very conversational. Again, everything about the experience leads to fond memories for me of that time. Sean had a way of describing my playing that just made sense to me, and which I appreciated. When I’d play the heavy rhythms in Shaman’s or Singularity, he commented once while he was laughing and smiling, that it sounded analogous to ‘an engine shifting’. That’s always how I’ve
approached my rhythmic playing, but no one had ever stated it that way.
I was always in awe of his technical skill and never could wrap my head around seeing him play that bass part in Rivers so fast and play his Stick parts just as effortlessly. He was a true master of his instruments. He did a clinic at Thoroughbred music that I went to with him, and again at a clinic he did with Mike Portnoy and a local guitarist in Ft. Lauderdale as part of one of our Miami treks — I remember being completely floored at his performances and well thought out discussion points. On both occasions, he asked me what I thought afterwards and genuinely wanted my feedback. He leaned over before getting up on stage with Portnoy and said, “I really wish you were up there with me and Mike instead of the local guitarist”. A very kind, humbling statement.
Signing with Laser’s Edge and the Gordian Knot project
After recording the demo songs, I believe we were at the point where we weren’t sure what to do with the vocalist situation — things weren’t happening, prospects were not looking favorable, and we hit an impasse.
The three demo songs for this release I believe were what were sent to Ken Golden at Laser’s Edge, and Sean gave the news that the tunes could be part of an instrumental project under the moniker Gordian Knot. He also mentioned he was in conversation with Ron Jarzombek (are you freaking kidding me?!), Trey Gunn and John Myung. I was floored, and still am, every time I hear Trey’s stick or Ron’s guitar over the rhythm tracks.
Once Sean had worked everything out for the contract, I recorded my classical guitar parts and modified them to fit the solos that were now residing over the top of the different sections.
Sean really wanted to do a version of Reflections, so we arranged that together. The drum tracks from the demo we had done wound up being the tracks on the final disc (or for Shaman’s, on Emergent), with Code-Anticode and Reflections being recorded later. I was disappointed that our version of Shaman’s wasn’t on the first GK disc — that to me was the impetus for everything GK-related, and part of the reason why I wanted to resurface these demos. They deserve to be heard, and Shaman’s has that special ‘spark’ that was captured incredibly well on both demo
versions.
Post-GK I, Emergent and At War With Self
After GK I came out it was received very well critically and garnered a lot of attention. It really was an honor to be part of that disc, and to know that the songs I helped write became such powerful pieces of music for people listening around the world. It also opened the door for me with Ken and my first At War With Self disc, which I am very grateful for. That would not have happened the way it did unless GK was a thing.
Sean and I kept in touch after GK I and he was excited to be moving to Oregon to pursue his Ph.D. He was gearing up for Emergent and shared some early clips of that with me and that Steve Hackett and Bill Bruford would be the line-up, among others. Again, are you kidding me? Just knowing that Hackett and Bruford had HEARD the first GK disc was mind-blowing to me.
When I started seriously putting together the details for Torn Between Dimensions, Sean agreed to sign on as the bassist but ultimately decided not to do it. His opinion was that it would be too similar to GK. It was really for the best — as much as Sean and I wrote well together, I don’t know how it would have gone if I were the one making the final decisions on all the songs and if he would have been satisfied with those. There are decisions with the final mixes on the GK disc that disappoint me, and a lot of the nuances that had a lot of care and thought put into them cannot be heard well. Part of that is unavoidable, due to solos over the top of things. Mixing any album is difficult, though. Looking back, I’m unhappy with choices I’ve made on some of the AWWS recordings and would have done things differently with more experience or hindsight.
So, it’s not black and white, and a tricky thing to deal with. Sean and I both had very strong compositional preferences and visions for those tunes — many times we agreed with each other, but sometimes our viewpoints didn’t always align, which is always the case!
At the time, I was pissed that he agreed, then backed out because things were already far along. We wound up having a falling out, and with Sean being the very private person that he was, we didn’t reconnect after that. There was really no way to reach him even if I had tried — but I suspected it was best to leave things as they were, and we kept to our own projects. I enjoyed the newer Cynic material immensely and have a tremendous amount of respect for Malone and Reinert, their legacy and most importantly, their companionship and collaboration during those years.
Rest in peace.
Glenn Snelwar, June 2025Song Notes:
Shaman’s Whisper — 1996. Demo with Programmed Drums
This one started it all. Initial ideas recorded over Sean’s keyboards and drum programming. LOTS of clean, ‘piezo-ish’ Parker Fly Deluxe tones going on all over the version that has Reinert on it, but quite a bit of classical guitar on this initial version. As with all three tracks, there was intentionally space left for vocals, solos — those would come later. I’d like to think the rhythmic and melodic ideas in the demo keep your interest as they did for us when we were putting them together. Heavy guitars all through an ADA MP-1 preamp and split stack cabs.
The chanting and samples were things Sean had embedded in his initial demo he gave to me. I thought it was a nice addition — it’s a bit jarring when you hear the female vocal sample in the middle section, but it’s effective.
I remember blasting this in the car between drives to and from practice, and knew we were on to something extraordinary. It still gives me chills listening to this after all these years.
Singularity — 1996. Demo with Programmed Drums
Again, that keyboard and piano vibe gave a lot of inspiration to me. Sean and I both sound like we’re playing stick. Sean’s playing the bass note and I’m playing major and minor thirds to syncopate with him. Then he rips into that distorted stick part to change it up. I was really fixated on that classical guitar part I wrote for this initially, but I’m equally happy with the result where Trey plays a stick solo over the variation that ultimately was written. I loved the dual stick/guitar solo section in the middle. This was one of the highlights during practice as well.
Tool meets Toy Matinee towards the ending.
Shaman’s Whisper — 1997 EVER demo
Expanded upon the initial programmed drums idea. Sean’s drums complete it. I love the interplay between the guitar and the stick lines. The guitar solo was a rough idea I had put down over the top of the original demo — this cassette was what I was able to find, the one with the solo idea recorded over the top. It has a TERRIBLE guitar tone. I decided to re-learn the short solo part note for note and play over the top, to at least help give it a slightly better tone. I love Sean’s stick work. Towards the end you can hear him playing the idea that becomes the beginning of Code — Anticode and I join in with the clean electric parts. One of my favorite parts of practicing this one live was running the looper to create the swells and layered electric parts. No e-bow, just a volume pedal and an old Quadraverb II effects unit doing the magic.
Singularity — 1997 EVER demo
You may hear the main pentatonic melodic idea from Reflections in the first verse, with the guitar sounding very much like a Stick part. But that was intentional, Sean and I were locked in that way, and this was before the idea of using Reflections had been discussed — so it rears its head here in GK for the first time.
River’s Dancing — 1997 EVER demo
The main difference between this version and the final version on the disc is obviously the lack of solos here. Again, this was the foundation for future vocals, or that was the thought at the time. I love the heavy guitars juxtaposed with the clean rhythm at the end (just before the slow part at the end) — I was thinking ‘The Song Remains the Same’ or a similar driving Zeppelin rhythm for that last section when I wrote it, coupled with a very Cynic-like vibe. I wasn’t sure what to put there, and at first it sounded odd to me — I did have a hard time coming up with something to play over that bass line to make sure it didn’t obfuscate what he was doing in any way — that’s the rationale for the harmonics and higher pitched rhythmic ideas — you don’t step on that bass line, it deserves to be heard! And you can REALLY hear it in this version with no solos over it. It’s just mind-boggling.
I much prefer the classical guitars that wound up on the final version instead of the Parker piezo guitar sound that is here in the middle section. Again, similarities for me to The Police in the middle breakdown and again towards the end with the staccato phrasing just before the outro. We were allowing the song to breathe. And the solos Sean takes in addition to the astounding technical display throughout. Damn.
If you’re a guitarist, now you can play along to the ending section and try to replicate Ron’s crazy solo — good luck with that. :D
