[4] The songs were all written by Phil Elverum during the winter of 2002–03, which he spent alone in a cabin in a remote part of Norway.

[5] The album was released on CD concurrently with a 144-page hardcover book and 16 colour photo cards.

[4] The album was also released as just an LP packaged with Elverum self-portraits drawn from the reflection of a window in the cabin in Norway.

Elverum had previously covered Björk's "All Is Full of Love" on the 2001 Microphones album Blood.

He explained that the song is about the "idea of holding on to the memory of that mysterious black void while in the middle of the bright day.