Track list:

1. Interlude I
2. the Failure of Surface - Failure I
   for solo piccolo
3. Interlude II
4. the Principals of Order
   for bass clarinet, harp and percussion
5. Monday Morning
   for live electronics
6. the Failure of Surface - Failures I & II
   for piccolo and bass flute
7. the Elimination of Metaphysics (B)
   for solo bass clarinet
8. Interlude III
9. the Rules of Irrelevance
   for bass flute, bass clarinet, harp, piano and percussion
10. Interlude IV
11. the Failure of Surface - Failure II
    for solo bass flute
12. the Closeness of Materials
    for bass clarinet and harmonium

Davíð Brynjar Franzson’s a Guide for the Dead through the Underworld, is a 12 part listening guide to the composer’s immediate environment. The various noises that the instruments can produce are treated as representatives of sounds taken from his surroundings––from the ticking sound of a red toy duck, through the squealing brakes of large trucks as they grind to a halt on Amsterdam Avenue, to the low rumble of the boiler in the basement of his apartment.

Through this process, Franzson not only creates something new, but creates a space wherein the new can take place. In this case a freak of nature: the Monster––a monster defined as the combination of objects (living or inanimate), each separately belonging to a natural category, but combined forming the "unnatural". By placing the disembodied sounds of the instruments within the context of his immediate environment, Franzson constructs unseen musical monsters, monsters that live right on the edge of our perception, briefly popping in to existence only to disappear again.