into the studio we just get them to play along with preliminary ideas or themes. We can record hours of music and end up using one minute of it. But this time we had the body of the songs before the string quartet came, and we wrote down a part for them. It was a little more disciplined than before." Rygg, commenting in Unrestrained magazine, said, "The first song, “Eos,” is an embellishment of a piece that we did for a funeral theme in the movie Uno. So you can use the same source material in different contexts. If you're in a different place at a different time and in a different frame of mind you can use stuff that originally didn't go anywhere, and make something of it. So yeah, we keep everything, but, man, it's a lot of music and ideas lying on the backups these days. I'm guessing 10 per cent of what we start ends up as something presentable. We feel like a lot of things are interesting for 30 seconds or so, but then what? We could probably sell riffs to rock bands, sell hundreds of riffs or piano themes or whatever, but our main problem is to tie elements together—to 'bring it home,' as they say. We are quite selective." Rygg commented in Terrorizer magazine, in 2007: “Lyrically, the album is very simple. It's the basics - life, love, loss. And, of course, death. It's been a humbling record to make, and has kind of beaten us down. People will no doubt say that it's pretentious, but that's not how it felt when we were doing it." Continuing, “The lyrics are always the biggest challenge. We have these writer's nights sometimes, Jørn [Sværen] and I, where we go to my parents' cottage with something to drink, some music and just dedicate ourselves to writing." Commenting on Ulver’s evolution, Rygg said, "I don't think anyone will be surprised. The shock value is gone, I think it went away with Metamorphosis. Since then, the changes haven't been fundamental at all.” Continuing, “I think the shapeshifting story is one that has been greatly exaggerated by the media. There have been a couple of twists and turns after the Blake record, that's granted, but nothing too significant. I see Ulver as having a part one and a part two. And that's a division that we already had in