Konietzko said the ideas for songs began with individual sounds, which he then modified until he created a looped rhythm. "Craze", for example, Konietzko called "an homage to Atari Teenage Riot, a band with two guys, one girl, a couple TR90S drum machines and a bass machine." He said he was inspired by touring with the band in Europe in support of "Nihil" in 1995. After creating the base tunes, the songs went to Günter Schulz, another longtime member, to add guitars. With the completed songs, Konietzko then allowed guest artists, such as Connelly, to pick songs they wanted to contribute to, and added their vocals or other instrumentation. For "Xtort", Konietzko used Macintosh products to do all the synchronization.