Mindfields marked the official return of Bobby Kimball to Toto. When asked about the peculiar name of the new record, Bobby said, ""I would imagine it to be little explosive points in the chain of memory, and deviations from the 'normal.'"
The title apparently finds its roots in the
=> Mindfields Artwork, and the original working title of the album was "Mindfields and Miracles."
In an interview with Guitar Player (June 2000), Steve Lukather talks about the sound of this album:
"For 'Cruel,' I tuned down to C# with .010s on my guitar," he explains. "The light string gauge made me bend way too far, but everyone liked how the lead break sounded, so we kept it. For that track, I used a Music Man with DiMarzio single-coils for a cool, clicky top end, and the subwoofer cabinet on my Rivera Bonehead added a real thump to the lows."
Mindfields also displays a stripped-down sonic approach. "I really don't use that many effects anymore," says Lukather. "A little delay is about all I'm guilty of. The Leslie sound on the "Last Love" solo was actually achieved by double-tracking the lead lines and playing with the tape-speed control on the multitrack. And the backwards-sounding guitars on 'After You've Gone' were recorded with a technique I learned from => Jeff Beck. I hammer with my left hand, while hitting the bridge with my right. It gives parts the illusion of being played backwards because the bends don't sound humanly possible."
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Steve Lukather
Mindfields
