Nowherians is an alias created by Crawford Blair, a musician/sound designer who is most well known as a founding member of the band Rothko, a band entirely comprised of three bass players, who coalesced at an unlikely and opportune moment in North London during the late 1990s. With Rothko he released several albums, EPs and singles on labels such as Lo Recordings, Bella Union (the label of Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde, with whom they collaborated too) and others, as well as 7” split releases with artists such as Four Tet and Tarentel amongst others, before their original lineup disbanded in 2001. Years later, in 2010, Blair alongside Mark Beazley (also founding member of Rothko) formed Rome Pays Off, at start as a duo project, then later expanded into a trio when Chris Gowers (Karina ESP, Lowered) joined them. Blair has also been a member of several other bands in the late 1990s and 2000s such as Geiger Counter (along with Jon Meade, the third founding member of Rothko, amongst others), Foe and High Above The Storm. Since the early 2010s and under the alias of Nowherians he has released some tracks on various compilations and an unofficial self-released, digital only, compilation of stray tracks in 2012. That's only a partial background for some context, but we really need to move along to the album.

The overarching facet of this album is sustained, thick, heavy pads (ie; strings, synth strings) with some tonal variation, and at a lower volume, it could be considered ambient. Turn it up, and it becomes something else. While not dissonant in and of itself, there are aspects of dissonance that occur in some pieces that might be reminiscent of orchestra tuning. Although the method is similar nearly throughout, the mood and temperament is different from track to track. These pieces come off more as New Classical abstract tone poems than anything else, being somewhat conceptually formed beyond atmospheric ambient, but dwelling in that realm nonetheless. I found some pieces, such as "Swiss House On Fire" and "Coldwater I" to be as oppressive as the heat and humidity currently is here, but maybe that's just me without AC. The album's single anomaly comes at the very end in a short piece titled "Recognize" with hammered resonant overtones. I found 'That Is Not An Acceptable Lullaby' somewhat hard to get into, in spite of multiple listenings. You might feel different. The usual SIS limited edition numbered (200) release, with a more deluxe package numbering only 50 costing a bit more, and of course, the cheaper digital download.