Inventions began in 2013 as a collaboration between Eluvium's Matthew Cooper and Mark T. Smith of instrumental post-rock band Explosions in the Sky. Different from the two artists' main acts, Inventions' releases, including 2015's Maze of Woods and 2020's Continuous Portrait, incorporate skipping beats and playful vocal samples along with atmospheric guitars and ambient textures.

Cooper and Smith had long been friends and both had albums with their respective bands on the Temporary Residence Ltd. label when Inventions was conceived. Also notably, at the time of Inventions' formation, Cooper hadn't played in the context of anything other than solo output since participating in the obligatory basement punk bands as a teenager, and Smith hadn't played in any outfit other than Explosions in the Sky since they got their start in the late '90s. The duo's shifting explorations of synth tones and electronic trickery took the form of a self-titled album, which was released by Temporary Residence in April 2014. The pair worked with a renewed sense of creative energy, producing new material at an accelerated pace. Second album Maze of Woods appeared in March 2015, not even a full year after the release of their debut. The sophomore effort featured a more rhythm-centric approach to their sound and also focused heavily on vocal sampling and the interplay between manipulated vocal sounds and their ambient surroundings. The album was accompanied by an EP of remixes by the Field, Leyland Kirby, and A Winged Victory for the Sullen. Later in the year, the duo released Blanket Waves, an EP of two extended dreamlike collages. After a five-year break, Inventions returned in 2020 with third full-length Continuous Portrait, an adventurous mixture of joy, wonder, and melancholy. ~ Fred Thomas & Paul Simpson, Rovi