bassist, prompting Hindalong to later joke that "bass has been the revolving door in this band." While Spurs would contribute to three tracks, the remainder of the album's bass duties were handled by Daugherty, David Miner and Mike Saeurbrey, the latter of whom returned to play on the album's first single, "Restore My Soul." Mark Heard, Jerry Chamberlain, Sharon McCall and Steve Griffith also returned to contribute vocals and production assistance. According to Hindalong, Circle Slide took 10 weeks to record and complete. Composition Music Unlike the pop sensibilities of Wide-Eyed Wonder, Circle Slide was a return to "longer, ethereal jams that conveyed a sense of longing for rest, for peace of mind, [and] for security." To that end, the album kicked off with the title track, which ran for more than seven minutes. Tom Willett, the band's A&R rep, was taken aback upon first listen: "It’s a shock for the record company guy to go, 'where’s the chorus? We’re 40 seconds in, there should have been a chorus by now,' [but] I ended up liking the statement it made: 'we’re in no rush, just sit back.'" Originally envisioned with an extended opening sequence of guitar feedback, the band abandoned that idea and kicked things off with a programmed snare roll instead. Inspired by a technique used by the Church on their album Starfish, Daugherty and Hindalong opted to bring the song to complete silence two-thirds of the way in before amping up again. Because the mixing board was not automated, this effort had to be done manually with multiple people. Both Daugherty and Hindalong consider this their favorite moment on the album. Much like they did on Chase the Kangaroo, the Choir continued to experiment with various recording techniques on Circle Slide: running Michaels' sax solo on "If I Had a Yard" through a wah-wah pedal; sampling Daugherty's vocals into a synthesizer that was then played by Hindalong on "A Sentimental Song"; combining the laughter of Hindalong's daughter Emily with a recording of his Honda motorcycle for "Laugh Loop"; and using alternating acoustic guitar lines that went back and forth between the left and right speakers on "Merciful Eyes." Although the album was not as radio-friendly as Wide-Eyed Wonder, both Hindalong and Daugherty claimed that, in regards to "A Sentimental Song" in particular, "if there’s one thing that’s the strength of our band, the Choir, it would be the