material. "The Cold Song" is based on an aria from baroque composer Henry Purcell's King Arthur, on which Nomi transforms the original bass vocals to his countertenor voice. "Wasting My Time," a co-write between Nomi and guitarist Scott Woody is a disco-influenced track, while "Nomi Chant" is a mostly instrumental synth-orchestra soundscape written by Man Parrish. The latter serves as an introduction to the album's final track, a live recording of composer Camille Saint-Saëns's aria "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" from the 1877 opera Samson and Delilah. Album cover The album cover photo was taken in February 1980 by photographer Michael Halsband, as part of his senior thesis at the School of Visual Arts. Halsband was an acquaintance of Joey Arias and wanted to photograph him and Klaus Nomi after seeing them on Saturday Night Live with David Bowie. Nomi showed up in Halsband's studio with a space-like plastic outfit that had just been made by a costume designer. The exaggerated Weimar-style suit was influenced by a similar outfit David Bowie wore on their Saturday Night Live performance, which again was based on Sonia Delaunay's design for 1920s Dadaist artist Tristan Tzara in the play The Gas Heart. "[Nomi] said that it would be great for me to be the first person to photograph him in that outfit, so we worked on it," Halsband said in 2010. "He and Joey loved working with me since I was into precision, trying to find a balanced portrait." Halsband has since gone on to become a successful photographer in music, art, fashion and film. Reception In a retrospective review, AllMusic's Sean Carruthers wrote, "Both the cover and the music within lean heavily to the dramatic – Nomi's delivery is all in a very operatic falsetto, though most of the music itself is more of the early-'80s European dance school ... fans of off-kilter pop music will certainly find a lot to love about this album." Ira Robbins of Trouser Press wrote that the album stretches from "hauntingly beautiful (Purcell's stunning "Cold Song") to hysterically funny (a somber reading of "Can't Help Falling in Love," a languid dissection of "The Twist")". Sean T. Collins, writing retrospectively for Pitchfork, wrote that the album's "multifaceted musical intelligence ... belies any attempt to write Nomi off as a novelty act or one-trick pony." Calling Nomi "so much more than merely interesting" and "a spectacle in the