Both Blaauw and Van Ee had formerly played with Highway Chile, but Helloise was an altogether more polished, musically complex project. Cosmogony, the group’s debut, released in 1985, secured strong praise for its musical dynamism and free-flowing rhythms, but sales lagged behind the critical response. That fate also befell Polarity, released in 1987, after which WEA lost patience and Van Ee left the group. The group attempted to soldier on, but by the early 90s had become frustrated with a lack of record-company reaction to an allegedly superior set of demo tapes.