Intended as a follow-up to two earlier Morricone compilations assembled by Dagored, the album was put together by Alan Bishop and released by Ipecac Recordings.

The collection focuses on Morricone's lesser-known soundtrack work, with Ipecac founder Mike Patton consciously wishing to distance it from similar compilations.

[1] Patton, founder of Ipecac Recordings, has described his admiration for Morricone's writing, feeling that the composer turned "what could be banal, surface-style pop into really deep, orchestrated, tense and compelling music".

Patton has praised Bishop's work on the project, calling him "a big Morricone scholar", and has described Crime and Dissonance as one of the Ipecac releases he is most proud of.

[6] Crime and Dissonance features liner notes written by composer John Zorn, who had previously reinterpreted Morricone's work on the album The Big Gundown.

[10] Joshua Klein of The Washington Post has described the album as featuring "bizarre soundscapes, discordant drones, proto-sampledelica, weird instruments, strange sounds and oddball voices".

[12] Stylus Magazine's Cameron Macdonald rated the album an A−, finding that the "kitsch" mass-market appeal of Morricone's better-known western scores made Crime and Dissonance a more "relevant" record.

[4] However, Gurney questioned the target audience of the collection, believing that it would not be likely to appeal to casual listeners while not presenting much new material for dedicated Morricone collectors.