The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste for the album. Bill Rieflin and Chris Connelly instead attributed the album's sound to the band's interest in technology. For pre-production, Rieflin said he and Barker watched films for a month, sampling anything that caught their interest. Instead of writing music, they all improvised individually, rarely collaborating with each other. Connelly compared it to exquisite corpse, a Surrealist technique in which an artistic work is created collaboratively without any of the participants having knowledge of the others' contribution. Rieflin cited "So What" as the only track to feature two musicians in the studio at the same time. After playing with
A Supplement to the Journey to the West the future. He explains a person who travels to the future must embolden their spirit when facing adversity. By killing the six thieves, torturing Qin and honoring Yue, Monkey is able to break free of the Qing fish’s power. The sixth asks why the Tang Priest becomes a general. He becomes a general to wipe out the forces of desire. The seventh indirectly asks why the Tang Priest cries when a young girl plays the pipa. Dong quotes the Buddhist tenet that sorrow is the source of desire. The eighth asks how it’s possible for Monkey to have a wife