Donna Maria Blues is a tribute both to Italian composer Don Carlo Gesualdo, and to his first wife, Donna Maria, whom he murdered in 1586. Several direct references are made to Gesualdo's own music, particularly the harmonically torturous motet "Ave dulcissima Maria". The work was written for the English dance company "Spink Inc", and employs a mixture of multi-tracked and treated acoustic sound with fairly unsophisticated synthesized sound.