The double album marks ten years since Wolf's debut studio album, Lycanthropy and contains re-recorded, acoustic versions of select songs from the previous ten years. The first disc, Sundark, features "more solitary darker material" and "songs that were written in loneliness and not really thinking about other people", while the second disc, Riverlight, includes "songs of hope and relationship" and "isolation and solitude on one and togetherness". Buffy Sainte-Marie co-wrote the new version of "Hard Times" after they met in Barcelona during the recording session.
