The compilation was issued as a double CD, packaged in a slimline case.

The term "isolationism", in a musical context, was coined by British musician Kevin Martin and first appeared in print in a September 1993 issue of The Wire magazine.

[2] James Plotkin identifies Brian Eno's ambient works as the greatest influence on the isolationist scene, along with American experimental music such as Illusion of Safety.

As Plotkin says, I really didn't know what was meant by Isolationism [...], because it encompassed this broad spectrum of music that ranged from Ambient to avant garde music to even something more aggressive – like the Japanese Noise scene.

And [compiler] Kevin Martin was definitely responsible for exposing a really large amount of people to music that would otherwise have gone unnoticed, so I guess it's not all bad.