While looking through songbooks of traditional Galician music, Spanish saxophonist Xose Miguelez happened upon a recording by the ethnic musicologist Doroth' Schubart of a ballad, sung by his own Great-Aunt Amparo almost 40 years ago in Cerdedelo-Laza, a beautiful village hidden in the Galician hills. All of the compositions on "Ontology" come from a four-note motif at the beginning of that ballad.