[4] After releasing Heavens Open (1991), his final album for Virgin, Oldfield felt the time was right to start on a sequel to Tubular Bells.

[4][3] Oldfield praised management at Warner for expressing interest in his music and offering constructive suggestions that would help sales without feeling "tied by them", as opposed to Virgin.

[3] Before Oldfield started to write music for the album, he revisited Tubular Bells and mapped out its composition into different coloured sections.

[4] He kept a progress chart in his home studio, writing directly onto the wallpaper in pen; his first entry was in June 1991 when he recorded the first piano figure for the album.

Oldfield credited Horn in giving the album "rhythm and groove" which he considered a weak spot in his technique and something that the original Tubular Bells had lacked.

[4] The original Tubular Bells featured a section where Vivian Stanshall was the Master of Ceremonies who calls out instruments being played.

Dark Star is also the title of a sci-fi film by John Carpenter which was released in the same year as the original Tubular Bells, 1973.

Writing in Q magazine, Mat Snow described it as a "more consistent but less tune-happy musical sequence than TBI" and praised "producer Trevor Horn's fairy dust" as an advantage.

[8] The album was supported with a live concert on the esplanade at Edinburgh Castle on 4 September 1992 with 6,000 people in attendance,[9] which aired on national television one hour after its conclusion.

[10] In October 1992, the show was released on home video as Tubular Bells II: The Performance Live at Edinburgh Castle.