As a result, this album is made up of material originally recorded from 1985 through 1989, rough versions of which appeared in 1988 on a self-released cassette called I Had Sex With God.

Defever responded that he had already been rejected by that label, and continued to submit cassettes to 4AD, with revised and improved versions of the songs appearing on each new tape.

Over time, Ivo and his This Mortal Coil partner John Fryer felt they could actually mix Defever's home recordings into something that 4AD could release, and the album finally appeared in the summer of 1990.

Trouser Press noted that "upon its first appearance, Livonia was justifiably regarded as yet another sojourn into 4AD atmospherics: in its moody, ethereal translucence, coupled with femme vox and a seeming lack of direction, the album seemed doomed to exist in the label's pretty-but-insubstantial ghetto.

Defever also said his intentions for releasing the project was to show 4AD that there was still interest in Livonia in America, where the label is not keeping the album (along with the rest of HNIA's 4AD catalog) in print in the United States, despite nothing preventing them from doing so.