Initially, tin foil was recorded with very close microphone positions to reveal hidden sounds.This stage of composition was an investigation of quality. The (mainly) textural material was then compared with other types of sound sources, such as glass and balloons, both of which merged with the tin foil sounds through spectral and gestural linkage. Sounds were set along a continuum of likeness to each other. In traversing this continuum (which essentially forms the structure of the work) some of the sounds enter as counter-subjects to a main idea, others enter as subjects in their own right.

This became the point of the piece: foil and its opponents, and it was at this point that the title of the piece Foil-Counterfoil emerged. The work was taken through many drafts in order to resolve its final form, one where phrase structure has become an important issue. Obviously the foil sounds related more to "noise" than "pitch", so a series of resonant filters were tuned to certain pitches in order to colour some of the foil and balloon sounds, thereby merging them more with the glass and bottles. There exists a middle ground: occupied by computer processing.The computer processed soundfiles using all the current techniques. Sounds were granulated and filtered using resonant filters in sound. Filtering took place within the Pro-Tools mixing environment.