The album utilizes great amounts of jamming; thus, Matthew Miller considers Undercurrent to be a jazz-like record, since it comes from "the same modus of musical exploration, improvisation and conversation.

"[2] He states that the idea of this album was to emulate the energy of live recordings (through improvisation) that is hard to "pull off" in the studio, and he believes people will feel "its real spirit of freedom" when they listen to it";[2] similar to how fans tend to prefer live Grateful Dead recordings over their studio albums.

When discussing the making of Undercurrent, he says that instead of writing and recording in the studio, he wanted to start with a live sound.

He spent nearly two years assembling this band, during which he would improvise and jam on stage (while being recorded) during tours.

[1] The song "Step Out into the Light" peaked at position 48 on Billboard's Mexico Ingles Airplay chart.