As a composer sometimes the music will inform me what the name of the piece should be and sometimes I think of the title beforehand, Like a Velvet Hurricane is one of those latter cases. When I was working Maggey Mangold, she told me that she was newer to the world of performing with live electronics, but willing to dive in. It was her suggestion to use a flugelhorn instead of a trumpet, which made me think of neo-noir inspired music. From there I imagined some hard-boiled detective in a black and white atmosphere narrating the beginning of a film with the opening line being, "She walked into my office like a velvet hurricane."