Locrian is an experimental project founded in 2005 by Chicago, Illinois-based academic André Foisy (electric, 12-string, and acoustic guitars, bass, tape loops, plus a lot of effects pedals) and Terence Hannum (synthesizers, vocals, tape loops), who began collaborating in extremely piecemeal fashion -- almost song by song at times -- so that their early discography grew to contain over a dozen official and unofficial bite-sized works, issued in limited numbers and multiple formats. Along the way, Foisy and Hannum were abruptly tasked with conjuring up a name after accepting an offer to perform their first live gig, so the self-confessed music theory nerd Foisy suggested Locrian, inspired by an exotic musical scale (once banned by the Catholic Church for being "evil") and an obscure tribe of ancient Greeks.

In due time, Locrian's rather scattered creative methods coalesced into more manageable album-sized portions -- namely 2009's Drenched Lands, 2010's Territories, and 2011's The Crystal World -- without relinquishing the right to mix and match musical styles (black metal, noise rock, industrial music, drone, etc.) as they pleased, or issue limited-release singles and EPs along the way. As of the latter release, Locrian's lineup (always filled with guest musicians recruited from the Chicago area) was expanded with the confirmation of full-time percussionist Steven Hess.

The band signed to Relapse in late 2011, and the label issued The Clearing the Final Epoch; it was a compilation of a previously issued on vinyl-only EP as well as new tracks. Released in 2013, the full-length Return to Annihilation was performed without guests and recorded and mixed by Greg Norman. In celebration of the band's tenth anniversary, Relapse released the single "An Index of Air" on June 1, 2015 with guests Dana Schechter of Insect Ark on slide guitar and Erica Burgner-Hannum (Terence Hannum's wife) of the Holy Circle on vocals (they also appeared elsewhere on the set). This track and "Heavy Water," issued on June 23, served as precursors to the studio album Infinite Dissolution, which appeared in late July. It was produced by Norman and mastered by Brad Boatright. A conceptual recording that concerns itself conceptually with the topic of human extinction; it was inspired in part, by Elizabeth Kolbert's Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia, Rovi