Tamborello, operating from his L.A. home studio he called Dying Songs, contributed more-or-less finished bed tracks. The first two songs he sent developed into "Brand New Colony" and "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight", which were completed over the course of a week. The pair worked at a pace of two or three songs per month. As Gibbard did not know Tamborello very well, he was nervous he would not respond to his contributions positively. "I really thought he was gonna be like, 'How dare you do this to my songs?'" he said. Initially, Tamborello was challenged by Gibbard's vocal suggestions. "When you're just writing the music, you come up with your own vocal melodies. But Ben's ideas were totally different," he told the BBC. The two were relative strangers from distinctly different musical backgrounds; "It was like having to work on the album and make friends at the same time," he admitted. Tamborello admitted he expected the album to be more experimental than it turned out to be.