After recording several singles and the albums Reproduction (1979) and Travelogue (1980), Ware and Marsh left the band, frustrated with bandmate Philip Oakey and the group's musical direction.

[1] Hoping to avoid the mistakes they felt their former group were making, Marsh and Ware formed British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.)

[2] As a 'production company', the group could hire and fire vocalists session musicians while on a no-royalty, flat-fee basis and work with unpaid machines.

Though still in debt from their Human League days, Ware and Marsh signed a new contract with Virgin for British Electric Foundation.

"[2] The first 'major act' signed as part of the deal was Heaven 17, a group featuring Ware and Marsh with their friend Glenn Gregory as vocalist, though B.E.F.

"[3] Speaking in 2005, Marsh more broadly described "moving around London on the tube, going to meetings, working all over the place, and listening to music on these Stowaways" as inspiring the album.

[2] He described the album's concept as "the soundtrack for your life" and said that listening to music on Stowaways "made you feel like you were in a film all the time.

Ware explained that he always enjoyed the idea of "music written for a purpose – for a film soundtrack, a theatre piece... I’ve always thought narrative was important.

[5] Writer Mark Cunningham writes that "[s]ynchronisation between the machine and synthesisers was achieved not with a SMPTE generator but an unpredictable pilot tone, and the hardware sequencing was purely monophonic.

[3] As their only prior musical experience was recording together as the Future and with the Human League, the duo were unused to working with session musicians.

"[10] The Music for Listening To LP version of the album, featuring a slightly different track list,[11] was described by John Bush of AllMusic as a synth-pop record which spans "percussion-heavy sequencer trance, free-floating ambience and minimalist proto-techno as well as more recognisable synth-funk," citing "Groove Thang" as an example of the latter genre being incorporated on the album.

[13] "Wipe the Board Clean" originally dates from the duo's days in 1977 as The Future, and an alternate version of the track was recorded at the time with the name "Titled U.N.".

[16] Medical founder Troy Wadsworth described reissuing the material as a "dream come true," due to the similarity between some of the music and Travelogue, the final Human League album to feature Ware and Marsh, which he said he was an "addict" for.

[21] In a contemporary review for Smash Hits, Red Starr hailed Music for Stowaways as a "fine debut" that demonstrates the "enjoyable side of electronics."

[10] In 2015, Uncut magazine included Music for Stowaways on their list of the "50 Greatest Lost Albums of All Time,"[22] describing it as "uncompromising, experimental stuff, on one hand harking back to the Human League’s stark Dignity of Labour EP, and yet somehow foreshadowing much of Warp Records' output 15 years later.

"[8] Meanwhile, although the Music for Listening To version was released to moderate sales,[23] John Bush of AllMusic retrospectively rated it four and a half stars out of five and named it an "Album Pick".