Arnold's music is characterized by a sense of dislocation and discontinuity, effects which are created using atonal melodies and novel combinations of instruments and timbres. It is generally slow-paced and characterised by a drifting, directionless quality, which he terms "slack". He has said of his own work:"All the music I make is in some way melodic. I also think of all of it as being slack, meandering, psychedelic and, even at its most ponderously enervated, dance music. Moby once said of The Flamingos’ version of "I Only Have Eyes For You" that, along with being a beautiful performance of a beautiful song, it sounded like it was recorded underwater in a Methadone clinic. Even at its clearest, my music somehow aspires to this ideal."The sound of Arnold’s music is also influenced by his wide-ranging interests in music outside the spheres of experimental and classical music, such as mediaeval polyphony, 1970s progressive rock, jazz-lounge music, and Scottish folk music.
