The album was recorded in approximately four months in Anderson's then country home in
Seer Green, Buckinghamshire which housed a garage that he converted into a recording studio.
[7][2] Anderson performed all of the vocals and instruments himself.
[4] Two-thirds of the album was initially recorded in demo form onto 8-track tape, which Anderson used as a guide to write the complete arrangements that were then re-recorded onto 24-track.
[2][4] To help with operating the recording desk and obtaining the desired sound for the album, Anderson hired Yes sound engineer Mike Dunne. Anderson worked for as long as ten hours a day on the album and took weekends off.
[4] Anderson praised Dunne's involvement on the project, particularly during the mixing stage, the second side of which lasted within a week. Mixing the first side, however, was problematic because Anderson continued to make changes to the music due to his dissatisfaction with it. In the end, Anderson commented of the final mix that, with Dunne's help, "It was what I wanted to hear. Mike was more than the second man, he was part of the mix."
[4] In the end, over 100 tracks were used to make the album.
[4] The pressure of recording it resulted in delays which caused Atlantic to push its release by some months. Anderson said: "There were points when I didn't think I was going to finish it, and that I was going to end up a nervous wreck."
[4]
Anderson was cautious over the music and refused to play the music to anyone in case they did not like it, including his wife and Atlantic president
Ahmet Ertegun; Dunne was the only other person that heard the album.
[2] Anderson plays a variety of keyboard, string, and percussion instruments, including the harp, wooden flute, Asian bells, sitar,
Moog synthesiser and Turkish
saz. He still considered his voice his primary instrument and used layered vocals to create impressions of a new language on "Sound Out the Galleon". He chose the words particularly for his voice as he was technically unable to play a dedicated solo on an instrument and called them "a vocal exercise [...] I sang it until we created twenty voices and finished up with this tangible energy."
[2] Anderson named Yes keyboardists
Rick Wakeman and
Patrick Moraz, and Greek keyboardist and composer
Vangelis as influences in his keyboard work on the album.
[4]
After the album was finished, management of
RCA Records informed
Vangelis, a composer and keyboardist signed to the label at the time, of their dissatisfaction that he had played on
Olias of Sunhillow without informing them. Vangelis denied any involvement on the album despite RCA having thought the keyboards on the album were performed in his style. Vangelis said: "I myself was very surprised it had my name on the thank you-list. Maybe I have influenced Jon, I don't know. And it's clear that it's closer to this than you get with Yes. But maybe it's a coincidence. In any case, it's a formidable feat there is such a record when it features like Jon a debutante on keyboards. I believe the record represents more the way he is than what he does with Yes, no offense intended [...] Anderson is not an instrumentalist in the old sense of the term and yet he has made, with lots of effort, a marvellous record."
[8]
A Steven Wilson surround mix of Olias Of Sunhillow 
would be 
wonderful. One of my favourite albums, and one I never ever thought would get the surround treatment (so I hope it does appear, 
PLEASE!). Another album I got in the summer of '76 before heading off to Uni, why thinking nostalgically back to then, I even I had hair lots of it from the top of my head to right down my back, now its vice versa and also stops before the top! This would suit a full size box set book like the original LP album with its amazing middle pages, which was reprinted on the Japanese CD & Audio Fidelity SACD I have, but its too small to appreciate in a booklet that size.
