Tim Story was born in 1957 in Philadelphia but lived in a small town in Ohio, where he worked as a sound technician. After an initial album of naïve electronics, Threads, which was never released (featuring the cosmic drone of A Thousand Whispers and the hallucinatory world-music of Moors), he was discovered in 1980 by a small Norwegian record label, which released his first three albums. In Another Country still presented him as a “cosmic” painter (Careen), although a tendency toward simple tones, subdued moods, and repetitive structures (Snake's Eye, On The Green Cays) was already evident. Untitled contains tracks with an almost Zen atmosphere, such as A Promise And A Plea and The Seventh Chance, as well as solemn and delicate melodies like In This Small Spot. Three Feet From The Moon, still halfway between impressionism for solo piano and melodic electronics, features the melancholic languor of Still Life With Lions, the pastoral motif of Here Lies The Water, the spectral reverberations of Great Thaw, and the cosmic lullaby of Three Feet From The Moon, with the piano endlessly repeating a theme reminiscent of Lennon’s Imagine. The fourth “Norwegian” album, Wheat And Rust, includes the hypnotic chant Sand And String, the ecstatic prayer of Chanarambie, the funeral march of The Secret Rhythm, and the hesitant elegy of A Private Mutiny—tracks that seem to endlessly repeat their heartfelt “om” to the universe.

Abridged (Hearts Of Space, 1996) is an anthology.

Story was brought to the forefront of the New Age scene by Glass Green and the sophisticated arrangements of Lure Of Silence, Woman At The Well, and One Shameless Vision, in which acoustic and electronic instrumentation blended beautifully.

The music of Beguiled is classical chamber music for solo instrument (a grand piano) and small ensemble (electronic keyboards, cello, and guitar), following the tradition of Satie’s anti-dramatic, anti-thematic miniatures: twilight timbres, meticulous harmonies, languid cadences, fragile melodies; all emphasizing simplicity, gentleness, intimacy, and a composure and austerity truly classical.
The languid and delicate scores of Beguiled and In The Days Of Small Sorrows, set against a background of electronic drones and tape loops, approach the “ambient” stasis of Brian Eno. From this model spring both Helen Of The West, with its melodic chimes in a dense atmosphere of echoes and reverbs, and the ethereal qualities of Pale Litany.
By further thinning the atmosphere, Improbable Landscape and The Luminous The Dark establish an art of hypnotically paced melodies floating in clouds of weightless chords. The conventional New Age piano sonata style is revisited in These Few Words, Her Cathedral, and Many Years Pass, imbued with memories and nostalgia.

Desperate Serenity features the collaboration of an avant-garde musician and is more aggressive than anything Story has previously done.

The Perfect Flaw, on the other hand, continues the elegant minimalist program of Beguiled, seeking an electro-acoustic version of chamber music (Kimberly Bryden on oboe and English horn, Martha Reikov on cello). The visions of After 4 O'Clock and Sister Of The Flood are tenderly wrapped in cosmic sensations of fear and hope. His sophisticated romanticism expresses itself through symphonic variations (The Color Of Vowels), “ambient” luminescences (Liquid Shadow Night), and serenades (Lydia).

The same formula repeats from beginning to end. While at certain points the music seems to become personal to the point of pure sensory abstraction, over time a universal vision of the human condition in the face of eternity emerges.

Compared to other electronic musicians of the New Age, Story has the merit of not overusing timbres. In a sense, he is one of the first electronic musicians who do not descend from the “cosmic couriers” and, in fact, have nothing to do with the German school. If any resemblance can be found with New Age ambient electronics, it is above all Story’s merit that he was among the first to simply try to continue the classical piano tradition within a (prudently) electronic context.

Drop (Lektronic Soundscapes, 1997), a collaboration with Dwight Ashley, ghostly ambient music (A Ripening) that relies on Story's repetitive melodic figures (particularly abstract in Drop) semi-industrial overtones (Rooster) nightmarish intensity (Rift)

Shadowplay (Hearts Of Space, 2001) is another impeccable collection of introspective pieces.

Lunz (2002) is a collaboration with Roedelius.

Later albums include: Buzzle (2006), Silent Cycles (2019), Smudges One - Virga (2019), Smudges 3 - Isola (2020), Moebius Strips (2021), Rust Smudges (2022), etc.