Sivan Arbel's compositional practice is alternately "nerdy," as the singer-composer describes it, and "stream of consciousness." In her studio, she labors meticulously over the nuts and bolts: rhythmic patterns, harmonic changes, melodic turns. Once the fundamental elements are in place, though, she sits at her piano and "squeezes the sponge," improvising words and music freely, reaching into deeper levels of consciousness. She records everything and then listens back, editing and refining what she has created. Her scores for Oneness are a mixture of minimal open slash notation, rhythmic hits, rapidly changing meters and grooves, specific dynamic progressions, intricate accompaniment figures and imaginative instructions like "clouds, open, washy."

Her lyrics tell personal stories, rarely following rhyme schemes. "Second Floor Beloved" came out of a "writing adventure" with a friend in Israel. They give each other "assignments," and on this occasion hers was to put herself inside the mind and emotions of a man without a home, asleep on the street. Her lyric is in Hebrew, with a chorus that translates as "He doesn't ask for a thing, only lays and waits, dreams about his second floor beloved." A heartbreakingly tender ethos permeates the piece, transcending linguistic barriers.

Arbel was reared on unity and solidarity. She went to primary school in Neve Shalom (Oasis of Peace, aka Wahat al-Salam), a small intentional village located between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem founded by Israeli Jews and Muslim and Christian Arabs, together. She and her young classmates shared songs, food, games, stories. Perhaps the little barefoot girl she longs to reconnect with in "Black Feet" is from this time. "Time passes by, but every year erases her a little," she sings.

With