Hello was recorded in early 1980 on Tim's newly-purchased TEAC 4 Track recorder, a succession of short, two to four minute pop songs that sparked and startled their way out of his Crumar DS-2 synthesizer - "the mighty Crumar," as it was affectionately known.

His "studio" was set up in the front room of his ground floor flat in Baron's Court, London. In addition to keyboards, Tim also played "drums" where necessary, achieved by beating on cardboard boxes of differing size. Friend and collaborator Erik Russell supplied guitar.

Although Hello was largely completed during 1980, on either side of Mike Oldfield's spring tour, Tim continued tinkering with it into the following year, adding and deleting tracks according to his mood, and tweaking the mix as well. Highlights of these revisions will be released on a separate volume; this, however, is the original "completed" version, taken from a rare surviving cassette tape.

Typically, Tim did not keep a copy of his own. Close to 40 years later, I mentioned in a letter that I'd recently been listening to it, to which he responded, "Christ, do you really still have [it]? Could you put it on a CD - I don't know whether I'm brave enough to listen to it, but it would be good to have."

A word about timing and context. Although Gary Numan had broken through into the Top 30 mainstream during 1979, and a number of other acts were toying with electronics, fully synthesized pop (as opposed to experimental) music remained a rarity when Tim began recording the album. It was only as 1980 progressed that more and more bands emerged with their own take on "synth pop," a development that Tim regarded less sympathetically than one might have expected. It was perhaps a reluctance to be similarly labelled a "synthipopper' that ultimately provoked the abandonment of these tapes.
Dave Thompson 2022