The album was originally conceived as a double album similar to Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" (1969). The first half was made up of the album as released, while the second was to be divided between personal projects and live-in-studio versions of older Van der Graaf Generator songs such as "Killer" and "Octopus". Evans contributed an avant-garde piece, "Angle of Incidents" which featured drums being recorded backwards and the sound of a fluorescent lighting tube being dropped down the studio's stairs. Jackson recorded "Ponker's Theme'", a short jazz piece, and a longer piece, "Archimedes Agnostic", with Latin lyrics written by Hammill. Charisma ultimately felt that the group should simply release a single album, and vetoed the live and solo recordings.