The album was produced by dub musician Dennis "Blackbeard" Bovell at Ridge Farm Studios in Surrey, and was released on 20 April 1979 through Radar Records.

Critic Simon Reynolds wrote that "Bovell's mix of acid-rock wildness and dub wisdom made him [...] the ideal candidate for the not hugely enviable task of giving The Pop Group's unruly sound some semblance of cohesion", noting that he grounded the band's sound in its rhythm section while utilising a variety of production effects.

[6] Writing for Fact, Mark Fisher characterised the album's sound as a "delirial montage of funk, free jazz, Jamaican audio-mancy and the avant-garde", describing it as "both carvernous and propulsive, ultra-abstract yet driven by dance music's physical imperatives".

[7] PopMatters wrote that the group "sharpened the straightforward guitar lines of punk, the bounding throb of funk rhythms, and the sonic manipulation of dub and let them penetrate each other in ridiculously slapdash fashion.

[6] Stylus Magazine called the album "a landmark of lunatic post-punk", writing that "these are political punk tunes deconstructed so that only the skeleton remains, and weaving between those bare bones are some of the nastiest sounds ever made".

[14] In 2004, Pitchfork ranked Y at number 35 on its list of the greatest albums of the 1970s, saying that "unlike most of the late-70s' no-wave types (and perennial imitators), The Pop Group were less concerned with eschewing convention than with vehemently eviscerating it".

A limited edition cassette (its first legitimate release on that format) contains the album only, but the enclosed download code includes the single tracks.