make utopian pop music that had pretensions of being progressive and exciting." Rings... was originally going to be called Text Messaging is Destroying the Pub Quiz as We Know It and released as a double album containing 75–90 minutes of material with Rhys stating that he was "into the excess of it, that was the whole point". The group eventually decided against the idea but, drawn by the technical capabilities of the format and the desire to do something that had never been done before, produced a DVD version of Rings..., making it the first album to be simultaneously released on CD and DVD. The DVD features a surround sound mix alongside music videos and remixes and was made possible only by the financial backing of Epic. Recording sessions began in April 2000 at Monnow Valley Studios in Rockfield, Monmouthshire, Wales with co-producer Chris Shaw and engineer Eric Tew. The band moved to Bearsville Studios, New York before returning to Monnow Valley some months later where recording was completed in September 2000. Bearsville was chosen because of its drum and live rooms, which the band felt were desirable as they were using more microphones to capture audio for the surround sound mix included on the DVD version of the album than they would normally when simply recording in stereo. The group were mindful of the capabilities of surround sound and recorded sub-bass on tracks such as "[A] Touch Sensitive" and "Juxtapozed with U", which could only be heard through a low-frequency subwoofer channel in the surround mix. The band recorded onto two-inch analogue tape until they had a take they were happy with, then transferred the results to Pro Tools where individual songs were edited and overdubs were added. According to Keyboardist Cian Ciaran this meant the band could "edit some beats very precisely ... like the gated kicks at the end of the track "Sidewalk Serfer Girl"". Once they were happy with a song the group then transferred it back to tape before mixing took place as they liked the "tape sound". Rhys wrote many of the tracks on the album on acoustic guitar and piano and brought them to the band either as fully formed songs or as ideas which the group would then jam out. Ciaran wrote the songs "[A] Touch Sensitive" and "Miniature" and the intro and outro of "Run! Christian, Run!". A jam between Cian