William's World

On the back of Brond finally making an appearance on DVD, I emailed Daryl about how he came to work with Bill, giving his more jazz orientated background, this is the reply I received:-

" Bill and I were put together by a TV executive whose name I’ve now forgotten. He must have been asked by the director for something weird and vocal. I was at that time in an avant-garde vocal group called Electric Phoenix as their tenor singer and resident composer.

The way the tracks were made was as follows. Bill would compose music in Yorkshire and send it on multitrack tapes to me in London (I seem to remember analogue tapes, though by then we were well into the digital era). I would compose vocals to go on the backings. The vocals were overdubbed onto the multitrack tapes at Angel Studios in Islington and mixed down there with Bill absent and me producing.

For the CD and 12” single the process was reversed. I took pre-recorded vocals up to Yorkshire and Bill and I put them onto the backings at his studio.

It was a productive collaboration and I found Bill a remarkable person. His spirituality in particular impressed me and I wish I’d got to know him better, but of course our two busy careers just carried on after Brond an we lost touch.

Thanks you for alerting me to the dvd release: my copy is ordered."

Very insightful, Bill, do you have any recollections? Listening again to the music there seems to be sounds that seem to be from the Fairlight, or something similar, how did you find using the technology that was very much at the cutting edge back then?

Mick