Following his career in musical comedy, Minchin semi-retired from touring after his 2010/11 international arena tour Tim Minchin and the Heritage Orchestra and writing the music and lyrics for the Royal Shakespeare Company's award-winning Matilda the Musical to focus on other projects such as appearing in acting roles as Atticus Fetch in the US series Californication and Judas in the 2012/13 arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar.

[6] The album contains four songs played on the BACK tour; "If This Plane Goes Down", "Leaving LA", "I'll Take Lonely Tonight" and "Carry You", which was written for the TV series Upright that Minchin starred in, co-wrote, and co-directed.

On 13 March 2020, "Leaving LA" was released as a single with the animated music video by Tee Ken Ng using zoetropes.

[10] The final single from the album, "The Absence of You", was released on 30 October 2020, alongside a one-shot music video.

All tracks are written by Tim MinchinOn 19 November 2020, a pre-recorded concert of the album was released online worldwide for 48 hours during the COVID-19 pandemic.