They included: Barebones Studios, Big Evil, Rusk Studios, LAFX (with engineer Spencer Guerra), Spendlove Studios and Limbo Studios in the UK. McMahon sang, he and Flannigan played keyboards, and Viola added bass. Viola and Flannigan sang backing vocals; Viola added guitar on "Black and White Movies". Flannigan contributed programming, with additional programming by Viola and Jake Sinclair, who provided additional production. Patrick Warren came up with string arrangements for "High Dive and "Rainy Girl"; McMahon self-produced the latter song at Gat 3 with engineer Glenn A. Tabor III. Zac Clark (who added programming, keyboards and tambourine) and Jay McMillan (who added programming, drums and percussion) co-produced "See Her on the Weekend". Sinclair mixed the final recordings at Infrasonic Sound, before Pete Lyman mastered them there. Composition Overview Musically, critics have described the sound of Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness as pop, soft rock and electronic, incorporating the classic rock and Americana elements of the Jack's Mannequin albums The Glass Passenger (2008) and People and Things. It earned comparisons to Fun, the Killers and Passion Pit. Similar to The Pop Underground, McMahon wanted to merge contemporary instrumentation, such as synthesizers and programming, with classic instrumentation, like piano, bass and drums. He purposefully did not want any guitar, which helped him to establish his own sound. While working on the album, McMahon said Daft Punk, LCD Soundsystem, M83 and Passion Pit influenced him. The album's title refers to McMahon being out of the major label system and without a band and his subsequent attempts to find his way back. The album discusses where McMahon was in his life at the time, and tackles some themes from Jack's Mannequin's Everything in Transit (2005), namely returning to southern California and starting a new life and the new topics of reflection and parenthood. McMahon wrote some material from a Sliding Doors-esque (1981) perspective and asked himself: "What would have come next if I hadn’t encountered that bizarre chapter of my disrupted 20s?" McMahon co-wrote half of the album's material with Viola, while the balance was self-written ("Rainy Girl") or co-written with Sam Hollander, Kevin Griffin of Better Than Ezra, Flannigan, Grahn, Andrew Goldstein and Brian Lee. Tracks McMahon co-wrote "Canyon Moon" in four hours with Griffin (whom McMahon had known since the early days of touring with Something Corporate) and Hollander. The trio made a demo of the track and forgot about it until McMahon