This collection focuses on the aggressive dissonance of what has come to be known as the composer's ‘'melancholy period', which spans the winter of 2003 into the early spring of 2004.

"the Specialist" can be viewed as an underground contemporary of the Heckerian cannon, heavily committed as it is to the various forms of glitch while maintaining an ear toward the necessary beauty of the melodic hook.

"Fantasia for piano, synth, and electronics" (aka ‘'fantasia') is an early representative of what is now recognized as the ‘'classicization' [sic] of the electronic oeuvre; melding an ambitiously tonal processed piano improvisation
with a sonic polyphony involving the usual cast of sonic colour and a few split tones that break like digitized seagulls wailing forth, splitting the lakeside calm of the pianos melancholic reverie. Essentially an arc form* (ABA) with introduction and postlude bookending the pianos long journey, the piece is notable for its painfully late
resolution after wallowing in its own meandering minor sadness for upwards of thirteen of a total 16.5 mins.

"mourn o cupids and venuses" whose title is taken from the Anne Carson poem of the same name, is perhaps the composer's most stable sonic outing of the current collection, save for the rather incongruous early break in the clouds of Pendereki-clusters to let in an introspective sample** which is wiped out with invective as quickly as it arrived.

The earliest composition of the collection, "agro love song" is a challenging listen for even the most jaded of romantics, possessing as it it does a nearly relentless snare drum and a dynamic rainbow of distortions that emulsify the rather minimal harmonic/melodic content of the piece.

*Though the case could be made between the formal and thematic contour of the Sonata's Exposition-Development-Recapitulation tripartite construction. **taken from the track 306, from "Lily Plain-You’re Hardly Poor" the AA Sound System’s first album in which, as Lane Arndt, the composer plays the bass and sings harmony vocals.