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Illuminated At Dusk Bill Nelson album - 16 June 2008 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Switch On The Sky, Light Up The Stars 02) The View From Mount Palomar 03) Dance Of The Luminous Dials 04) The Venetian Conjurer 05) A Spirit Map Of Montparnasse 06) Angels Obey Bells 07) No Memories Here To Make You Sad 08) Art Is My Aeroplane 09) Silver Sailboat On Samsara Sea 10) Springtime Comes A Dancing 11) The Vanilla Summer Of Mr. Whippy 12) Frankie Ukelele And The Fire In The Lake 13) Lakeside 14) The Eternal Fascinator 15) Thoughts Without Friction 16) Summer Over Soon 17) Little Kisses Wrapped In Chocolate 18) Illuminated At Dusk ALBUM NOTES: Illuminated at Dusk is an instrumental album issued on the Sonoluxe label in a single print run of 1000 copies. The album was recorded as the second part of a trilogy of complementary releases, the associated albums being Silvertone Fountains (issued concurrently with Illuminated at Dusk) and Mazda Kaleidoscope . Illuminated at Dusk is another album that was borne out of the Frankie Ukelele and the Fire in the Lake project commenced in mid-2007, with some of its content being then considered for Silvertone Fountains in December 2007 before finally ending up on Illuminated at Dusk with its track listing confirmed in February 2008. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "Illuminated embraces music which, (I personally felt), was a little less introspective, (on the whole). It's a bit more geared towards the rock guitar end of my spectrum...(or plectrum!). The arrangements are sometimes rather 'epic' sounding, larger and more 'up-front' than Silvertone, and there is more use of overdriven guitar sounds and percussion, though still with some odd twists and turns. "The music here might, at one time, have found itself on a Nelsonica Convention album but its purpose in the trilogy is to shift gears a little, to slip into more familiar waters before diving deep into Mazda' s strange lagoon. In a way, Illuminated provides a kind of respite from the introspection of the other albums [in the trilogy: Silvertone Fountains , Illuminated at Dusk , and Mazda Kaleidoscope ]. A more familiar ride for some, perhaps." _____ "These three albums are not about breaking new ground, but about cultivating previous territory in ever more subtle, sophisticated and elegant ways. Their purpose is to throw even more light on the concept, to refine the ideas, to offer detailed commentary and illumination. "With each of these albums, I've been concerned with a single, direct, arrow of beauty. That was my Sagittarian bow's aim. They were intended to be considered as a trilogy...and whilst each has its own subtle identity, they are deliberately linked, each following on from, and commenting on, the other..." FAN THOUGHTS: andygeorge: "I've been listening to Illuminated at Dusk most of this morning and have been amazed at how bloody good it is! This on only a couple of listens, which is unusual for me. I'm no musician, I don't know all the ins and outs of the recording process and the technical stuff that goes with it....but I know what I like and...THIS IS GOOD! "From the wonderfully intriguing titles, (love to know what inspired some of these Bill), the opening track "Switch on the Sky, Light up the Stars", which flows flawlessly for me thru to the quirky "Springtime Comes a Dancing" and ending with the Dreamy "Illuminated at Dusk"...bliss!" steve lyles: "I am not one for saying this is better than that one etc, usually because I truly love them all but I have been plugged in once again by the music on this particular cd. I have found myself having epiphany like all over body tingles. I am only on my fourth listen. In the car on the way to work this morning I was literally out of my mind most of the time totally absorbed in the musical landscape god knows who was driving. This is very personal music nothing tribal about it at all but thats exactly why I love it, it is something I can relate to completely." mvande2: "Illuminated At Dusk is preciously beautiful, possibly my favorite of all that you have done. Such instrumental guitar gems are the reason I seek out your recordings. They are especially intelligent and what you do best in my humble opinion." major snagg: "Oh how stupid I've been!...I've had the audacity to complain about Bill putting out too many instrumental CDs. So here I am (tail between my legs, as it were) saying my apologies...Sorry, Sorry, Sorry... I sent off for the above CD yesterday, actually received it today (is that a quick delivery or what!) it's BRILLIANT. I just can't believe that I wasn't going to bother with this CD. I'm not going to be that stupid again. This a Quality CD in every way, very tuneful, melodic, richly textured and of course a sparklingly clean production. How do you do this Bill? So many 'top' studios would give their eye-teeth to get such a sound. "I'm waiting with my credit card for the vocal CD. To hell with birthday presents, I want it now..." paul.smith: "I have to add to this thread because that trilogy of albums for me epitomises all that I love in Bill's instrumental albums - they possess endless depth and never present themselves as 'given' listens - there's very little that's 'finite' within them...beautiful endless abstracts that conjure up aural images that simply cannot be articulated in words...makes me wonder how I did without them before they were created..." thunk: "I have taken an early liking to "A Spirit Map of Montparnasse", probably due to its 'expanse', which like "Fever Dream of the Starlight Man" (a long one again), allows Bill to really experiment with a piece and take it into a different place..." Dar: "One instant giant, that jumps out and grabs me by the spine and squeezes me is "Silver Sailboat in Samsara Sea". It has the majestic, magnificent, deep and stirring qualities of the best and boldest Nelson masterpieces, and much of that is from the specific guitar tones, and much from the flavor of the notes themselves." andypeace: "Having listened to your music for 30 years now, you've taken me on a fascinating musical journey through all sorts of genres, you've never run with the pack, nor should you, and I've always admired you for that!...I'm listening to Illuminated at Dusk as I write this and on first listen its gorgeous, and it floats my boat...Keep producing works of sublime beauty like this and I for one will be more than happy...have a gold star sir." wonder toy: "Stunning!!! What an incredible album. Love all of it, but here are the tracks that standout for me: "The View From Mount Palomar", "No Memories Here to Make You Sad", "Springtime Comes A Dancing", "Frankie Ukelele and the Fire in the Lake", and "The Eternal Fascinator". I take that back... 'ALL' of these songs standout. This is monumental my friends. Get this record. You will not be disappointed on any level. "Thanks for raising the bar again, Bill." Albums Menu Future Past

Hot Valves Be Bop Deluxe ep - 5 November 1976 Singles Menu Future Past TRACKS: A1) Maid In Heaven A2) Bring Back The Spark B1) Blazing Apostles B2) Jet Silver & The Dolls Of Venus ORIGINALLY: All four tracks were album tracks, one taken from each of their four albums released up to that point. NOTES: The Hot Valves EP was the seventh Be Bop Deluxe single issued during the band's existence. The EP came in a picture sleeve (the first of their singles to do so). Promo copies exist with the words "Demo Record Not For Sale" and a large 'A' printed on the label. PAST RELEASES: "Maid in Heaven" was the track used to plug this EP, which finally earned the band a minor hit, although it deserved to peak higher than No. 36. Both "Jet Silver and the Dolls of Venus" and "Maid in Heaven" made it onto the Singles As and Bs compilation (1981) on the basis that they had also been issued as singles in their own right. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: On 24 November 2023 the Hot Valves EP was reissued on 10" vinyl by Cherry Red with fully restored artwork and remastered from the original master recordings. Singles Menu Future Past

Brave Flag Ukrainian download single Click image for cover Artwork Download single in support of the Ukrainian humanitarian charities appeal - Released October 2017. A-Side: BRAVE FLAG Currently unavailable on any album B-Side: MONDO BRAVADO Currently unavailable on any album "I'm sure you will all be aware of the illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces under the direction of Vladimir Putin. I've watched the situation unfold from its beginning with increasing horror. The Ukrainian people are suffering loss of life and homes due to the cruel onslaught of Russian missiles, shelling and bombing. There have also been gross atrocities and war crimes committed by Russian troops that will shock and disgust anyone with an ounce of decency. "I wanted to help, even if only in a small way, so have created a special single, the 'A Side' of which is titled 'Brave Flag'. The 'B Side' is titled 'Mondo Bravado'. Both tracks are instrumentals in the rock genre and feature epic guitars. The tracks come straight from my home studio and are in unmastered form. "I'm making the single available to fans for FREE as a digital download. All I ask in return is that everyone who downloads the free single should please donate a minimum of £5 to the Disasters Emergency Committee's Ukrainian humanitarian charities appeal. Every donation, no matter how small, will help to provide vital humanitarian relief for those in need in Ukraine. "Thank you for your generosity and compassion. Enjoy the single!" Performed, recorded and produced by Bill Nelson. All rights Bill Nelson 2022. Donate here

Crimsworth Bill Nelson album - 28 February 1995 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Crimsworth Digital download version bonus tracks: 02) Palace Of Gnosis 03) Out Of The Window, Into The Night ALBUM NOTES: Crimsworth is an instrumental ambient recording written for an art installation created by Rob Ward. The resulting music appeared on the Resurgence label, an off shoot of Voiceprint Records, who would issue several CDs worth of new (or archive) Bill Nelson material in the period 1995-97. Although the playing times for the CD track 1 and track 2 are different by a matter of seconds, it should be noted that the 2 tracks are in fact identical. Nelson's original idea was for the second track to be slowed down to play back at an octave lower...the record company failed to carry out these wishes and simply put the same version on twice. The album remained on catalogue for around ten years before Nelson personally purchased all remaining stock when it appeared that Voiceprint were about to dispose of what they had left. The remaining stock was then sold through the SOS store linked to Nelson's website Dreamsville until it was officially sold out in February 2008. A 2013 reissue was released by Floating World Records, which appears to be a genuine record company associated with Voiceprint. By then though, Nelson had licensed Crimsworth to Esoteric/Cherry Red. So when Esoteric label head Mark Powell approached Floating World Records enquiring about their entitlement to issue Crimsworth , they replied, saying the release was issued "by mistake", and have since removed it from their website. Unfortunately, Esoteric/Cherry Red were unable to release Crimsworth before their licensing deal expired, this release will likely be a candidate for future Bandcamp digital download release. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: In July 2025, an extended version of Crimsworth was released as a digital download. This version contains two previously unreleased bonus tracks which fit the long-form minimalist instrumental style of the original track, giving a total playing time of over an hour from the three tracks. Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "Crimsworth was a collaborative art piece. It was designed to act as the sonic component in a gallery art installation. The installation itself was created by Rob Ward and involved a room whose walls were covered in ceramic paper which had been painted in deep reds and green-golds. The floor of the room was flooded with a black oil-like liquid that reflected the walls, creating the illusion of an infinite space. Viewers entered the room one at a time and could move to the centre of the space along a slightly elevated walkway, laid over the liquid floor. The name for the piece came from an area of wilderness, called 'Crimsworth', near the artist's home. "The soundscape I made was played on a loop from speakers within the installation. The inspiration for the music was the artwork itself, rather than any other music, although I had the works of John Cage and Morton Feldman in mind. I think the music could rightly be called 'environmental' rather than ambient." _____ "Towards the end of 1993, I was invited by Rob Ward to create a piece of music for his installation ‘Crimsworth’. The installation comprised a rectangular room, the walls of which were covered with a special ceramic paper, painted by the artist. The floor of the room was then flooded with water over which a long, narrow platform extended allowing the viewer to enter the centre of the space. "The work was inspired by an area of landscape nearby the artist's home, known as Crimsworth. The music reflects this natural environment and is in turn refracted through Rob Ward's painting to create an elemental space pregnant with mystery and subterranean forces." _____ Bonus tracks: " ‘Palace Of Gnosis’ - was recorded at The Echo Observatory in 1988 and written as a piece for guided meditation for the Rosicrucian Order (Ancient Mystical Order Rosea Crusis) that I was involved with at the time. I was actually master of the Leeds Rosicrucian Lodge back then and devised a spoken scenario that I would narrate live over the music. The idea was to guide the people meditating on a journey down a river to a beautiful palace where they would encounter several symbolic and mystical beings who would impart occult teachings to them. I understand that the meditators found it very effective. " ‘Out Of The Window, Into The Night’ - was also recorded at The Echo Observatory, although a little earlier in 1985. It was originally intended as an opening sequence soundtrack to an animated film of Roald Dhal’s ‘The BFG’." FAN THOUGHTS: Steve Whitaker: "Crimsworth Dean is a valley that runs off the Calder Valley in the Hardcastle Crags area, and you couldn't find a more perfect spot to inspire art in any form." tommaso: "I always really loved Crimsworth , especially because unlike all of Bill's earlier 'ambient' work, this one really goes on for a long time, allowing you to immerse yourself in the sound." TheGlassGuitar: "I think an ambient piece should be long enough create an all-encompassing mood. Crimsworth does this better than any other ambient piece I know of." wonder toy: "It is not a song you tap your feet to and whistle while waxing kitchen floor. A song for every season and a song for every reason. If you have a spare 31 minutes to lay back and soak in some sonic bliss or if you just want some beautiful music in the background while performing some mundane tasks, reach for this one. I wish there were more albums just like it in the Bill Nelson catalogue. I am really looking forward to some of the long form pieces coming in the near future." Mr.Magnetism Himself: "From the alarm clock on "Sleep That Burns" and the radio transmissions throughout Modern Music to the manipulated sounds of water on Crimsworth , Bill delights me with his varied approaches to incorporating sounds from the worlds of commerce, entertainment, and nature." Babylonorphan: "I have always loved Crimsworth (If you don't "get it", you are not listening properly!) and play it as background music during my crazy noisy students' lessons, you should see them all, as soon as Crimsworth goes on they turn from marauding little devils into angelic little angels. The power of Bill's music knows no bounds!" Kalamazoo Kid: "In retrospect, I'd also call it a direct ancestor of more recent stuff - Sailor Bill , Neptune's Galaxy , And We Fell Into a Dream ." Puzzleoyster: "Anything with a hint of Crimsworthiness gets the heads up in my house!" Albums Menu Future Past

Animals They Dream About album - 2016 The Units Production/Contribution Menu Future Past TRACKS: 01) Animals They Dream About 02) Bones 03) More Alike 04) Blue Or White 05) Interstate 5 06) Straight Lines 07) Jack 08) Get That Funky Thang Off Of My Shoe 09) Warpaint 10) Your Face 11) Sidewalk Reel BILL: Co-Producer. Synthesizer, Guitar and Drums. NOTES: Recorded in 1981, but unreleased until 2016. Scott Ryser: "It just so happened that at the same time, Bill Nelson, of Be-Bop Deluxe and Red Noise fame, had also changed his musical direction, and had embarked on his "Practical Dreamers" tour in May of 1981 after the long-delayed release of his Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam LP. He was a fan of our music and we had been corresponding for a while. When his tour passed through San Francisco we finally met him. We were fans the Quit Dreaming LP, but also really liked the instrumental music he had recently finished, Das Kabinett (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) album in 1981 as well as the La Belle et La Bete (Beauty and the Beast) soundtrack LP he had recently composed. "He asked if we'd like to collaborate on something and we invited him to fly out to San Francisco, sleep on our couch in our little one bedroom apartment for a couple of weeks and try co-producing the second album we were working on, Animals They Dream About . To our surprise Bill said yes. We already had all the material and had been rehearsing it and playing some of it live, but just like our first three records, we hadn't signed anything with a record label yet. We all figured some label would pick it up and several labels eventually made offers…but they were all really bad offers. We couldn't afford to release it ourselves at that point, and were all busy working on other projects. So those tapes we worked on in our studio with my 8 track tape machine have been sitting in closets in all the apartments and houses Rachel and I have occupied in San Francisco and New York for close to 35 years now." ______ Check out these Facebook and Bandcamp links for the Units. Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

The Hermetic Jukebox Orchestra Arcana retrospective 2CD collection - 16 December 2002 Collections Menu Future Past TRACKS: Iconography 01) Christ Via Wires 02) Clock Conscious 03) I Wonder 04) Eastern Electric 05) Search And Listen 06) News From Nowhere 07) One Man's Fetish Is Another Man's Faith 08) Right, Then Left 09) Iconography 10) The Gods Speak 11) Life Class 12) Altar Natives 13) Sex, Psyche, Etcetera Extra Tracks: 14) Several Famous Orchestras 15) Who He Is TRACKS: Optimism 01) Exactly The Way You Want It 02) Why Be Lonely 03) Everyday Is A Better Day 04) The Receiver And The Fountain Pen 05) Welcome Home, Mr. Kane 06) This Is True 07) Greeting A New Day 08) The Breath In My Father's Saxophone 09) Our Lady Of Apparitions 10) The Whole City Between Us 11) Deva Dance 12) Always Looking Forward To Tomorrow 13) World Thru' Fast Car Window 14) Profiles, Hearts, Stars 15) Daughter Of Dream Come True 16) Alchemia Extra Tracks: 17) Um, Ah Good Evening 18) Kut Up In Cartoonsville 19) Short Wave NOTES: The Hermetic Jukebox is a limited edition 2CD boxed set that compiles both albums that Bill Nelson released under the name Orchestra Arcana, Iconography , and Optimism . For details about each album, please check out their individual pages in the album section of the discography. This set includes the first appearance on CD of the two b-sides from the first Orchestra Arcana ep, Sex, Psyche, Etc . The second CD also contains the 3 bonus tracks that had been added onto the original UK CD. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Although this CD set is now out of print, the individual albums are expected to be made available as digital downloads at some point. Collections Menu Future Past

Revolt Into Style Bill Nelson's Red Noise single - 30 March 1979 Singles Menu Future Past TRACKS: 7" Single: A) Revolt Into Style B) Out Of Touch (Live) 12" Single: A) Revolt Into Style B1) Stay Young (Live) B2) Out Of Touch (Live) 7" Reissue Single: A) Revolt Into Style B1) Stay Young B2) Furniture Music 12" Reissue Single: A1) Revolt Into Style A2) Furniture Music B1) Stay Young (Live) B2) Out Of Touch (Live) ORIGINALLY: The studio tracks were identical to the album versions from the preceding Sound-On-Sound album. The live versions were recorded at Leicester de Montfort Hall on 8 March 1979, and were originally found in studio form on the preceding Sound-On-Sound album. NOTES: Revolt into Style was the second and final single to be lifted off the Sound-On-Sound album, and would (reissues aside) turn out to be Nelson's final record under his deal with EMI. The single was issued in 7" and 12" formats, and was Nelson's first release on the latter format. The 7" single was available in a picture sleeve in blue vinyl (limited edition) and black vinyl, and sold sufficiently well to reach No. 69 in the UK charts. The 12" was in standard black vinyl, also in a picture sleeve. Note that the 7" label states that "Revolt Into Style" was recorded live at Leicester De Montfort Hall, but in fact the version is taken straight from Sound-On-Sound . The tracks on the b-side are live versions, correctly identified as being from the Leicester De Montfort Hall show from 8 March 1979 during Red Noise's only tour (which was comprised of just 12 UK dates). For the tour, the line-up featured Nelson, Andy Clark, Rick Ford and Ian Nelson, with Steve Peer brought in on drums. PAST RELEASES: Both b-sides were included on the 1989 and 2012 CD reissues of Sound-On-Sound . CURRENT AVAILABILITY: All of the single tracks were featured on the 2012 CD reissue of Sound-On-Sound, which is now out of print in physical form, but available as digital download on Amazon and iTunes. Both b-sides are available on The Practice of Everyday Life box set (2011), which is now out of print in physical form, but available as digital download on Amazon and iTunes. BILL'S THOUGHTS: "The Red Noise album featured myself playing drums on all but four of the songs. I always played drums on my home demos, even for the Be Bop songs, so to keep the feel as close to the demos as possible, I played drums on the actual album too. The four songs I didn't play drums on were taken care of by legendary drummer Dave Mattacks whose playing I had long admired. Those four songs required something a little more 'sophisticated' than my basic drum technique allowed and Dave did an absolutely wonderful job, particularly on the song "Revolt Into Style" which was quite an energetic and challenging piece. I also played some bass guitar on the album and some synth and piano too, though the bass and keys were mainly covered by Rick Ford and Andy Clark respectively. The tracks were mainly recorded in overdubbed layers, rather than as a 'live' band...despite the album's apparent edginess it was a carefully produced thing, tightly controlled with a definite, neo-futuristic style in mind." _____ "Be Bop didn't make promo videos as they were not considered an essential part of promoting a band at that time so EMI Records never bothered with them. Later, however, I did make a promo video for Red Noise, for the song "Revolt Into Style". Sadly, I never had a copy of it, 'though I believe my ex-manager Mark Rye 'appropriated' a copy when he left his day job at EMI as an A+R man to become more intimately involved with his artist's income. Anyway, the Red Noise video was based around a concept I had of a kind of ironic retro 'swinging London/Carnaby Street' pastiche. It featured shop window mannequins dressed in sixties psychedelia and mod outfits and was shot in a private drinking establishment in London's west end. It was a quirky and hip video, way ahead of the contemporary 'boutique fashion' revival thing and the sixties resurgence of recent years. A genuine rarity." Singles Menu Future Past

Fantasmatron Bill Nelson album - 8 August 2011 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) When God Was A Rabbit And Buddha Was A Mouse (Over The Moon Two) 02) The Captain's In The Wheelhouse (Fabled Quixote) 03) Everything Changes With The Weather 04) Fantasmatron 05) Melancholia Lagoons 06) Signal Destinations 07) Slinky Incantations 08) Kaleidoscopic Windows 09) Lights Shine When We Dream 10) Lampdownlowland 11) A Reliable Bicycle And A Map Of The Heart (Trip Two) 12) My Wild Atomic Wedding Day 13) The Thought That Counts 14) Art Is Long And Time Is Fleeting ALBUM NOTES: Fantasmatron is an album of vocal pieces released on the Sonoluxe label issued in a single print run of 1000 copies. The album was first mentioned by that name in a diary entry posted in April 2011, but in fact had slowly taken shape over the previous seven months, having begun life as Lamplowdownlowland . Progress on the album had to compete with other priorities including overseeing reissues (for Esoteric/Cherry Red and EMI) and preparing material for live performances included a projected tour in November that unfortunately never took place. The album sold out in July 2019. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "The closest I can come in an attempt to describe the music it contains is 'neo-psychedelic' pop-rock with a subtle hint of twisty electronica. (One clue is in the album's title:- a combination of the words 'fantasy', 'phantasm' and 'electronic.') It's a melodic, 99.9% vocal based guitar and keyboard driven album with plenty of colourful textural details and semi-surreal twists and turns." _____ "Fantasmatron ? Ooooh, darling! Pop via strange antennea...Crystal Set music for sensual supermen, erotic noise for sexy sailors and sailorettes, big blue dreams for dig it now, kids, rough and tumble for the refined of mind. Be there with it, or forever be square!" "Lampdownlowland": "a rather emotive track for me too...It attempts to capture those moments of quiet melancholy sitting in front of a fire on a cold winter's night when our thoughts turn to matters of mortality and the poignant beauty and suffering of the human condition. Ghosts of the past, distant memories, a kind of universal garden of eden from which we have all been, too soon, expelled." FAN THOUGHTS: neill_burgess: "Just had my first listen to Fantasmatron , and I have to say I am blown away. This is the album I've wanted Bill to make for years (even if I could not have defined what I wanted before hearing it!). "While still recognisably a BN album, to my ears it goes somewhere new, combining some of the spikey instrumental pieces we've heard previously with matching, edgy vocals. In some ways, it could be seen as a successor to the similarly "experimental" vocal album Golden Melodies , but whereas that had pastoral instrumentation the music here is more avant-garde rock... So, from me it's definitely a big thumbs up from the first listen - well done Bill!" steve lyles: "I am absolutely blown away by Bill's new album. I love the atmospheres and "feel" of this music...I find myself getting huge emotional surges as I am listening....no drugs required - just me and the music and it's a chemical romance. The track "Signal Destinations" is so truly epic...it's like a 21st century hymn...as I have thought hundreds of time before with Bill Nelson's music...just how does it get better than this ?...and then it does...extraordinary..." BobK: "Must say, I am blown away as well. This well and truly hits the spot. "I suppose you could describe the album as a collection of melodic, almost trippy, tunes. The word 'ethereal' springs to mind. Has hints of Golden Melodies and Fables about it and a suitable amount of strangeness. There are so many beautiful melodies here and some great stuff going on behind the top line melody, (listen on headphones!). "What more can ya say? Bill sings wonderfully, some terrific guitar playing, beautifully produced and mastered and loads of jolly nice weird blippy noises. I love it!" alec: "I'm all about Fantasmatron lately. Can't get enough of it. Can't make up my mind what my favourite track from it is!" Holer: "Holy crap! This one caught me completely by surprise. It's nice going into a new BN record with absolutely no idea as to what to expect. Honestly, I thought it was going to be another trippy instrumental record, which would have been more than alright with me, but POW! So much more! "I enjoy all of Bill's releases at some level, but every few years, he releases an album that really makes a statement - Sailor Bill , Golden Melodies , the Mazda trilogy, Non-Stop Mystery Action , among others. I think Fantasmatron is one of those records. Another classic, and one of Bill's weirdest pop albums to date! Hey, that's a GOOD thing!" Chimera Man: "Everything Changes with the Weather": "is simply gorgeous and I can't stop playing it... I do love it when Bill hits us with a laid-back vibe (is that adjective still in use?!), a sumptuous melody line and a really rich sounding composition." JohnR: "My favourite albums from Bill's recent output change with time, but there is still one that stands out for me as the No. 1, and that is Fantasmatron . It's got everything, including my favourite spine-shivering track - "Everything Changes with the Weather". Andre: "Art is Long and Time is Fleeting": "and your voice is untouched by time. Your voice sounds as warn as it did 40 years ago!" "Fantasmatron , to me, has got to be easily the best Bill Nelson has put out." "It kills me, because something like "Everything Changes with the Weather" should be all over the radio. We live on one strange planet!" Serge Ruel: "What an absolutely superb fusion and development of your musical avenues. Wow, am I ever so glad to be around to hear this...a dream come true." Alan: "Once again, Bill takes us along on his musical journey through new regions in Nelsonic lands. Like so many of Bill's albums, this one has its own personality." "Definitely one of my favorites. If you don't have this one, do yourself a favor and buy it now." Returningman: "My own favourite (and choosing one is not an easy task) is the album I just keep returning to - Fantasmatron . In my eyes (and ears) it is Bill's most rounded and complete set of musical statements in many years." "Like a fine wine this album gains depth with age (and playtime). Worth digging out the headphones for this one as there is lots of stuff deep in the mix. "Most artists of a "certain age" recorded their best work many moons ago. Bill seems to be in a golden phase of his artistic career at present, and is releasing some absolute gems." novemberman: "Fantasmatron instantly hit me as exceptional. I didn't want it end!" Albums Menu Future Past

La Rocca! album - 1981 Snips Production/Contribution Menu Future Past BILL: Keyboards BILL'S THOUGHTS: "I was asked to play on the album by Snips himself, (real name Steve Parsons) who was originally, I think, a musician from Hull who had a background with various Hull bands, including 'Throbbing Gristle' in their earliest days, (though he wasn't really involved with that music, but just a friend of Cosey Fanni Tutti's). The album was produced by guitarist Chris Spedding, a great player who had been a session musician on many pop singles, (including 'The Wombles' novelty hit), but who also had a respectable jazz background. Chris played on Jack Bruce's wonderful, 'Songs For A Tailor' album as well as on several other respected recordings. Chris later went on to be a member of 'Sharks', a band which also featured Snips as vocalist and who, I recall, supported Roxy Music back in the day. I bought the Sharks album when it first came out and loved it, particularly the track 'Snakes And Swallowtails'. That album was played in the van in the earliest days of Be Bop Deluxe when we'd be driving from Wakefield to Leeds for a gig at 'The Staging Post' pub or wherever. Sharks also had the late Andy Fraser (from 'Free') on bass too. (I'd once been asked to join a 'supergroup' that Island Records were attempting to put together with Andy Fraser on bass and ex-Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell on drums). Anyway, jumping forward in time, Snips asked me to play keyboards on the album 'La Rocca'. I was surprised by this as I'd always considered my keyboard playing to be secondary to my guitar playing but, because I'd been such a fan of Sharks' music, I agreed to do it. I was incredibly nervous during the session, especially as Chris Spending was the producer and guitarist. I struggled through as best I could on an instrument I'd never had to deliver on in that kind of situation. I recall inordinate amounts of booze being consumed by both Chris and Snips during the session but I was too nervous to partake myself and desperately tried to stay focused and professional. It was one of those, dive in, sink or swim moments. Having said that, I think I acquitted myself reasonably well, without my guitar in hand. Played mostly Mini-Moog as far as I recall. A long time ago now. I still love what Snips and Chris do." Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

By The Dawn's Early Light album - 1991 Harold Budd Production/Contribution Menu Future Past BILL: Electric and Acoustic Guitars. Co-Writer on one track, "The Place of Dead Roads". Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

Sunburst Finish Be Bop Deluxe album - 9 January 1976 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this box set Purchase this double CD TRACKS: 01) Fair Exchange 02) Heavenly Homes 03) Ships In The Night 04) Crying To The Sky 05) Sleep That Burns 06) Beauty Secrets 07) Life In The Air Age 08) Like An Old Blues 09) Crystal Gazing 10) Blazing Apostles ALBUM NOTES: Sunburst Finish is the third album by Be Bop Deluxe. It was recorded at Abbey Road Studios, London during October 1975, and represents the band's commercial breakthrough. The band lineup on Sunburst Finish is that established for Futurama - Bill Nelson, Charles Tumahai and Simon Fox, with the addition of new member Andy Clarke on keyboards. The album appeared on vinyl and cassette and was promoted by the release of the single Ships in the Night , which became a Top 30 hit in the UK, and exposed the band to a much wider audience. Vinyl copies were released in a single sleeve, and the record was housed in an inner sleeve bearing lyrics to all songs. For the North American market an 'Airplay' edition of the album was pressed for radio use only. This comprises the same material as the commercial release but the segued tracks are individually banded. When reissued on CD in 1991, EMI elected to enhance the album by adding 3 bonus tracks, although they represent a mixed bag in the context of this album and the reissue programme as a whole. "Shine" stems from the same period as the Sunburst Finish album (albeit recorded after the album sessions, without Charlie Tumahai), but was released in tandem with the follow up album Modern Music as a single 'B' side, so arguably belongs with Modern Music . Both of the other 2 bonus tracks hail from the Drastic Plastic period, and one of them, "Speed of the Wind", is a bonus track on Futurama , so shouldn't have been included on both albums. Conversely, the experimental track "Blimps" which can be found as a bonus track on the Drastic Plastic reissue in the same series, was recorded around the same time as Sunburst Finish and should have been included on that album instead. If you no longer kept your vinyl copy, and require song lyrics, then this CD edition satisfies that need, and the informative sleeve notes penned by Kevin Cann provide useful context. In April 2017 Cherry Red and E soteric R ecordings , who, since 2011, have done so much to raise the profile of Bill Nelson's solo recordings from the period 1980 to 2002, acquired the rights to release the Be Bop Deluxe and Red Noise material issued between 1973 and 1979. While this resulted in the deletion of existing physical editions, Cherry Red kept Sunburst Finish on catalogue from 1 June 2017 via the usual download sites such as Amazon and iTunes while an expanded edition was prepared for a 2018 physical release. On 23 November 2018 Sunburst Finish became the first Be Bop Deluxe album to be issued as a Deluxe Edition comprising: a freshly remastered version of the original album, a 2018 remix of the full album. 6 unreleased studio recordings. previously released live and studio material recorded for Radio 1. the original album presented in a 5.1 mix and three filmed performances. the previously released OGWT appearance from 13 January 1976. a super rare promo video for Ships in the Night that was made in 1976 but never shown on TV. The album is presented in a triple fold out digi-pack and contains a 68 page booklet with an essay penned by Bill Nelson, reminiscing about the recording of the album at Abbey Road Studio, previously unseen photographs from the period and a couple of reproductions of advertising posters. A 2CD edition of the album is also being released at the same time as the Deluxe Edition featuring Discs 1 and 2 which will also replace the standard download edition. The full track listing for the Deluxe Edition is: Disc 1: 01) Fair Exchange 02) Heavenly Homes 03) Ships In The Night 04) Crying To The Sky 05) Sleep That Burns 06) Beauty Secrets 07) Life In The Air Age 08) Like An Old Blues 09) Crystal Gazing 10) Blazing Apostles Disc 2: 01) Fair Exchange (New Stereo Mix) 02) Heavenly Homes (New Stereo Mix) 03) Ships In The Night (New Stereo Mix) 04) Crying To The Sky (New Stereo Mix) 05) Sleep That Burns (New Stereo Mix) 06) Beauty Secrets (New Stereo Mix) 07) Life In The Air Age (New Stereo Mix) 08) Like An Old Blues (New Stereo Mix) 09) Crystal Gazing (New Stereo Mix) 10) Blazing Apostles (New Stereo Mix 11) Ships In The Night (First Version) 12) Beauty Secrets (First Version) 13) The Mystery Demo 14) Crystal Gazing (Alternate Vocal Version) 15) Crying To The Sky (First Version) 16) Ships In The Night (Alternate Vocal Version) Disc 3: 01) Life In The Air Age (BBC Radio 1 In Concert 15 January 1976) 02) Sister Seagull (BBC Radio 1 In Concert 15 January 1976) 03) Ships In The Night (BBC Radio 1 In Concert 15 January 1976) 04) Maid In Heaven (BBC Radio 1 In Concert 15 January 1976) 05) Third Floor Heaven (BBC Radio 1 In Concert 15 January 1976) 06) Blazing Apostles (BBC Radio 1 In Concert 15 January 1976) 07) Crying To The Sky (John Peel Session 10 February 1976) 08) Piece Of Mine (John Peel Session 10 February 1976) 09) Blazing Apostles (John Peel Session 10 February 1976) Disc 4: 01) Fair Exchange (5.1 Surround Mix) 02) Heavenly Homes (5.1 Surround Mix) 03) Ships In The Night (5.1 Surround Mix) 04) Crying To The Sky (5.1 Surround Mix) 05) Sleep That Burns (5.1 Surround Mix) 06) Beauty Secrets (5.1 Surround Mix) 07) Life In The Air Age (5.1 Surround Mix) 08) Like An Old Blues (5.1 Surround Mix) 09) Crystal Gazing (5.1 Surround Mix) 10) Blazing Apostles (5.1 Surround Mix) 11) Ships In The Night (BBC 2 Old Grey Whistle Test 13 January 1976) 12) Fair Exchange (BBC 2 Old Grey Whistle Test 13 January 1976) 13) Ships In The Night (Unreleased Promo Video 1976) PAST RELEASES: The original edition of Sunburst Finish was deleted sometime around 1979/80, but was reissued as a budget release in 1982 by EMI on their Fame imprint. The album was reissued again on Revolver in 1986. Neither reissue came with the benefit of the lyrics on the inner sleeve. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: The deluxe box set and the 2-CD set is available for purchase in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "On Sunburst I had more control. The song "Crying To The Sky" on that is still my favourite Be-Bop track - it was called 'ecstatic' guitar. I wanted to get away from the bombast of Led Zeppelin and follow Hendrix; "Crying To The Sky" was my homage to Hendrix. I used a Gibson ES345 stereo and a Carlsboro 100 watt amp. I'm always asked how I got the sound on it but there was no gadgetry or secret devices. The amp was just put right at the back of Studio Two at Abbey Road, where the Beatles used to work, right at the back wall. I turned it up until I couldn't turn it up any further, stood right at the other end with a very long lead, to avoid feedback, and just played. I approached it from the angle that Hendrix had approached his more lyrical pieces." (from an interview in Guitarist Magazine, September 1991). _____ "There were THREE perspex cylinders on that tour. They were used to make a visual connection between the Sunburst Finish album sleeve image and the tour itself. They were also inspired by my fondness for a cult 1950's sci-fi film, 'This Island Earth'. (If you've seen the film you'll recall the scene where the hero and heroine step into perspex tubes that turn their flesh transparent, revealing the underlying physical structure of muscles and skeleton.) "The show that Be Bop presented back then was designed around a stage set that included our own theatre-style procenium arch, complete with scarlet velvet curtains with the band's name embossed in gold at the top. The curtains would part to reveal the stage in semi-darkness with the three cylinders spread out at the front. The cylinders had tracer lights inside them and were filled with dry ice. (Not smoke.) Charlie was in one tube, Andy in another, and myself in the central one. Simon was hidden behind us, up on his drum riser at the rear of the stage. The tubes would be winched up and out of sight, revealing Charlie, Andy and myself, before we'd pick up our instruments to play. All this was choreographed to a tape of opening music...(Which, I think, was the abstract instrumental "Blimps"). There were three projection screens at the rear and sides of the stage, the central screen being used for specially edited film and the side screens for slide images of old pulp magazine covers from the 40's and 50's. Again, everything was co-ordinated to music cues and all the images were chosen to reflect the musical content. Once the stage lights went up, we'd go straight into the first song of the show which used clips from the Fritz Lang film 'Metropolis'." _____ "Actually, I have silver discs on my studio walls for Sunburst Finish and Modern Music . These represent sales to the value of "more than £100,000" according to the little plaque mounted under each disc. I guess the ambiguity lies in the words 'more than'. It could, I suppose, amount to a heck of a lot 'more than', but no one's telling. I do remember being told that Sunburst had gone gold towards the end of the band's career but I was never given a gold disc." ALBUM REVIEW: Review by Dmitry M. Epstein Review on ProgNaut FAN THOUGHTS: Tim Barr: "It was with Sunburst Finish that the band achieved their most significant commercial success, reaching the charts with both the album itself and the "Ships In The Night" single. Stretching out across ten tracks, Sunburst Finish sounded like the product of some weird, future jukebox; from the Hendrix stylings of "Crying To The Sky" and the dreaminess of "Heavenly Homes" to the raw, vamped-up punk of "Blazing Apostles". Outside of the band's increasingly obvious "signature sound" it was evident that something special was happening." (Interviewer for Guitarist Magazine) Returningman: "Sunburst Finish - the ultimate 70's album (and album cover)." Old Darkness: "One day in 1976 my world changed forever when an older friend (to whom I shall be eternally grateful) introduced me to Be-Bop Deluxe via Sunburst Finish . From the very first listening I recognized that here was something very special and unique. Be-Bop had it all, the music, the lyrics, the voice, the perfect triumvirat for the perfect musical storm." aquiresville: "I consistantly return to those incredible soaring guitar runs that Bill crafted for the dynamo-of-a-song "Sleep That Burns", a track that, once I bought the CD (and lovingly shelved my vinyl), I had to resist (and fail) multiple "repeat" playbacks. Sunburst Finish is an incredible collection of art, each track a beauty, story-sets blazing with characters, drama, location and energy." quitdreaming: "In my mind it is more aggressive, edgier, rawer - more basic - but at the same time so polished and honed to within an inch of perfection. There is incredible beauty & poetry in the slower compositions ("Heavenly Homes" being an absolute gem - along with, of course, "Crying To The Sky") balanced with the sheer energy of "Fair Exchange" and "Blazing Apostles". The soundtrack of my youth and an absolute classic." mvande2: "I was on a "cosmic cruise" in my buddy's Mercury at night navigating the two-tracks in local forests. He had recently purchased 8 track tapes of Sunburst Finish and Futurama because he like the covers. I've been forever hooked. Peter: "Was at home doing my homework and listening to KSAN, a local AOR station that was my favorite at the time. On comes this amazing song! I was transfixed and transported. I waiting for the DJ to give the title and it turned out the be "Fair Exchange". I decided that BBD deserved another chance. I went out and bought Sunburst Finish and an obsession was born." soteloscope: "I was waking up for another 2nd grade school day when my big brother put on "Beauty Secrets" on Sunburst Finish . The opening guitar with its folky chords and almost Spanish solo notes were magical to me." Prey: "I went into K-Mart (1976) to look through the limited record rack... there was a naked girl in a tube holding a flaming guitar on the cover of an album, I thought even if the music sucked the cover was cool, I bought it. Side one was awesome, turned it over and side two was defective after track 2, so I went back to K-Mart to get another, they offered me my money back... I kept the album defects and all rather than give it up altogether. It was years later I got to hear the 'rest' of Sunburst Finish ." Puzzleoyster: "I listened to the entire Sunburst Finish album, in the car last weekend and was once more blown away by the quality and freshness of the music - there's STILL no other band like Be Bop Deluxe...I will certainly continue to enjoy them, along with all of Bill's more recent music." Quinault: "I won Sunburst Finish off the radio, went to the concert later that week and have bought everything I could get my hands on ever since." John Leckie: "I first met Bill Nelson in 1974 when I mixed most of the album called Axe Victim over a weekend. I then went on to co-produce and engineer Sunburst Finish , Modern Music , Live! In the Air Age , Drastic Plastic and Red Noise and Bill's solo album Quit Dreaming ." Albums Menu Future Past

The Essoldo Cinema Welcome to Bill's private cinema. Pull up a seat, select your film and enjoy the show! Christmas Greetings Videos Films Created For Nelsonicas And Live Shows Bill's Solo Videos Be Bop Deluxe Miscellaneous

Acceleration Bill Nelson single - 13 August 1984 Singles Menu Future Past TRACKS: 7" Singles: A) Acceleration (7" Remix) B) Hard Facts From The Fiction Department 12" Singles: A1) Hard Facts From The Fiction Department A2) Acceleration (Dub) B1) Acceleration (Long Version) B2) Acceleration (Short Version) ORIGINALLY: The various mixes of "Acceleration" (a song originally from the Chimera mini-album) were initially exclusive to these singles. "Hard Facts from the Fiction Department" was the lead track from the fifth ABM club ep (May 1984). NOTES: Acceleration is a single issued in three formats (7", 12", and 12" picture disc) on the Cocteau Records label. The 7" single was available in two different picture sleeves (as illustrated above). The picture disc would be the first and last Bill Nelson picture disc, and resembles the illustration that would be used on the cover of the Trial By Intimacy box set. PAST RELEASES: The "Acceleration" 7" remix was included on the original 2LP version of The Two Fold Aspect of Everything (1985) and the Duplex compilation set (1989). All tracks except the 7" remix were added to the remastered 2005 CD of Chimera . B2) was included in the The Practice of Everyday Life box set (2011). Both of the above releases are out of print in physical form. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: The 2005 reissue of Chimera is available via digital download through major online retailers. BILL'S THOUGHTS: "At that point in time, I had been making a fair bit of music along the lines of "Acceleration". I'd used some drum tracks sent to me from Japan by Yukihiro Takahashi of Yellow Magic Orchestra and had written various musics to go with them. Also the album The Love That Whirls featured electronica based tracks which provided the basis for things like "Acceleration". It wasn't really new to me, but maybe sounded new to others." Singles Menu Future Past

Contemplation 2007 Bill Nelson download single - 3 December 2007 Singles Menu Future Past Download here TRACKS: 1) Contemplation 2007 NOTES: "Contemplation 2007" is a re-recording of a song which was issued in demo form on ABM Club EP # 3 in 1983, and later recorded professionally for the Getting the Holy Ghost Across album in 1986. The 2007 version runs for over 11 minutes long, and was performed live at Nelsonica 07 before shortly afterwards being presented to the Dreamsville Community as a free download using a guide vocal track. The download was later added to Nelson's Bandcamp page once it was established for the very reasonable price of £1. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download from Bandcamp. BILL'S THOUGHTS: "It was kind of adapted from the version I'd performed live on the 2004 Be Bop Deluxe and Beyond Tour...by that, I mean the extended version with longer improvisational sections. I didn't refer back to the '80s recording too much but tried to give it a slight twist here and there." _____ "Contemplation" is STILL one of my favourite songs from that era, which was why I included it in the 2004 anniversary tour set with my band. And both versions of the song have their merits for me." Singles Menu Future Past

Old Haunts Bill Nelson album - 09 November 2019 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Gentle Spirits Prevail 02) Once Upon A River 03) Rain Town 04) Antique Interiors 05) In A Haunted Arcade 06) There Are Ghosts Here 07) Bells Ring Sweet Across The Meadow 08) The Phantom Palace Of The Prince Of Dreams 09) As The Stars Began To Glow 10) Lost In The Cosmos Again 11) My New Erotic Guest 12) To Imagine Is Hard 13) This Gilded Age 14) When Art Schools Shaped Tomorrow 15) The Darkness Will Remain 16) Soft Light ALBUM NOTES: Old Haunts is an album combining vocal and instrumental pieces issued on the Sonoluxe label in a limited edition of 1000 copies. The album was recorded during June and July 2019 and represents the final album to be made using Nelson's Mackie based recording system that has been his trusted set-up since 2002. Old Haunts continues the new exclusive arrangement of using Burning Shed as the manufacturers and online outlet for obtaining Bill Nelson's music on physical formats. With 16 pieces recorded for the new album, and with known issues with the DAT machine at Fairview Studios as experienced with the Auditoria 3CD set last year, Nelson decided to transfer the tracks for Old Haunts to CDR from his DAT masters in advance of the album's mastering session. That mastering session for Old Haunts took place at Fairview with John Spence at the helm on 17 September 2019. With the album successfully mastered, Nelson turned his attention to the album artwork. Assembly of the sleeve design fell to Martin Bostock working with images prepared by Nelson. Midway through the recording of Old Haunts , Nelson tabled an idea to hold a launch party, including a live performance of instrumental music, to honour the arrival of the new album. The launch party event was duly arranged for 9 November 2019 at the customary venue of The Clothworker's Hall at Leeds University. Tickets for the event went on sale on 10 August 2019 and sold out within 24 hours. Ticket holders had the opportunity to buy an advance signed copy of the Old Haunts album on the night. The remaining copies (mostly unsigned) were made available to buy through Burning Shed with a pre-sale announcement made on 17 October for a general release on 15 November. Old Haunts sold out in October 2021. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "I'm currently working on a new album titled 'Old Haunts' . The starting point is to conjure up a state of beautiful decay, reverie and nostalgia. A twilight world where rain falls gently on rusty factories and streetlamps glow with pale light on abandoned avenues. Well, that's the starting point, but it will inevitably develop and stray." _____ "I have to admit that, all modesty aside for a moment, 'Old Haunts' is going to be a very good album with a great deal of personal insight. At least a couple of the songs are plain speaking, emotional recollections of my past, romantic life. It's a kind of exposing of some areas of my emotional travels, albeit in symbolic, metaphorical terms. But anyone who has followed my story with a certain amount of curiosity may be able to draw the lines between the dots." _____ "I now have 15 tracks completed for the 'Old Haunts' album, all of which, (even if I do say so myself,) are sounding very good. In the main vocal-based, this is going to be one of those albums that I find personally satisfying, both from a conceptual and aesthetic point of view. I may yet create one more track though, a short instrumental to open the album." _____ "The album isn't a 'flippant' or casual piece of work, though it does contain some lighter, less intense moments. It's an album for now and (I suspect,) the age I, and some other fans, have arrived at. It's reflective, pensive, a little melancholy perhaps, but, hopefully, filled with optimism and a contemplative surrender to inevitability but, not without a sense of beauty. I guess it has a 'spiritual' dimension, a hint of 'the other' about it..." _____ "On first listen it may seem a bit 'darker' than previous albums, but it's a gentle darkness that sparkles with beautiful light. It's a mature album in some ways, an 'adult' album for grown-ups who seek something with a little more depth and self-reflection, rather than the more 'la-la-la' dancing around your handbag stuff. It's simply a message from the heart and where I am at this particular point in time, as all my albums are. Just another statement of the here and now, a diary entry, a mark on the calendar. It goes on, ever forward and always in flux..." FAN THOUGHTS: Coach Matt: "Purely enjoying Old Haunts that I received today. This CD is putting me on mood swings! Bill knocked out another master piece! Fantastic and brilliant from end to end!! Outrageously Done!!" Michael: "First impressions: another diverse lot of songs with the usual superb guitar playing and, to these ears, some newfangled synth, drums and percussion sounds (is this the new drum machine?). There's also the playfulness, which is always refreshing, though the overall tone is rather somber. The entire CD is like a journey that should be listened to start to finish. Some of the tracks are downright epic with the intricate arrangements and twists and turns of the drum programming. I'm looking forward to repeated listens of this one, for sure!" Steve Lyles: " Old Haunts is a masterpiece...from first listen the whole album resonated with me...the style, the production, the superb musicianship...not one to compare but l hear hints of Golden Melodies Of Tomorrow and Simplex in the mix...the songs have a complexity and simplicity to them...it does demand an attentive listener and isn't one to cherry pick...it's ridiculous that one man can continue to create such beautiful music after all that has already gone before...long live Bill Nelson." "I love this album and it's been the most played here in Northern Nevada the last year." Palladium: "Really loving this album. Abundance of texture, depth, atmosphere, mystery...and lush melodies. Plus sublime guitar of course!" Albums Menu Future Past

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 William's Study (Diary Of A Hyperdreamer) April 2011 Jan Feb Mar Dec Thursday 22nd April 2011 -- 8:00 pm As always, there's so much to tell, but I'm far too busy to tell it in detail so I'll attempt to condense things a little, turn the last few weeks into signals, ciphers and semaphore. Just read between the lines... The 'Legends' TV performance ended up being something of a trial, (as readers of my Dreamsville forum will already be aware). The audience genuinely seemed to love it and were loudly and positively enthusiastic, but the band and myself were less than happy with the uncomfortable conditions we were expected to perform under. And, as the artist with 'his name on the tin,' I was equally frustrated by the end result. The 7-piece 'Gentleman Rocketeers' band was hindered by a makeshift stage barely big enough for us to be squeezed onto. We suffered from a muddy, uninspiring and confusing monitor mix and were physically unsettled by an environment that felt more like a sauna than a performance space. (My clothes were literally stuck to my body with sweat when I changed after the show.) The heat did no favours to the tuning stability of the guitars either. After over 30 years of playing in all sorts of concert environments, this particular situation came as a genuine low-point. Truth is, I'd rather not perform at all than let my musical dreams down so spectacularly. The band's entire performance was an uphill struggle from start to finish, just deeply unsatisfying. Had it merely been a 'get through it and then forget it' type of concert, perhaps we could have accepted the situation and moved on...Unfortunately, much more was at stake than a simple one-off gig. The concert was being set in digital cement... (of the quick-drying variety too). The production company's rush to get a DVD commercially released (by the end of May apparently), meant that deeper scrutiny would soon be applied to the entire show. For ever... After the concert I was given a set of CDrs of stereo mixes of the performance but, after listening to them at home I became, er...(I'm sorry, there are no other words for it), utterly depressed and disillusioned by the result. This was not a fair representation of what we had spent several days putting together at rehearsals. It was a band shackled by technical and physical conditions beyond our control. It immediately became apparent that there was little choice but to accept the option of mixing the multi-track recordings of the performance independently, (although the contract apparently stated that this option could only be taken up at my own expense). I'm afraid I couldn't have lived with the recording as it was. Consequently, I'm now over £1,000 out of pocket as a result of having to spend four intense days in Fairview studios, trying to nudge things a little closer to the usual standard, (with the help of ace engineer John Spence, of course...plus some careful repairing of certain 'unstable' aspects of the performance itself, the majority of which were a direct result of the situation we'd found ourselves in.) The upside of all this is that the recording now sounds much better than it did...and perhaps it now comes closer to doing justice to all the hard work that the band and myself put into rehearsals. Having said that though, the concert still lingers in the memory as being a very uncomfortable and, (dare I say it), controversial experience for us. Such a shame that something so 'permanent' fell so profoundly short of what we'd hoped for. However, the thing that concerns me most right now is whether the series will be broadcast on UK television or not. When the opportunity was offered to put a band together and perform in front of the cameras, it was pitched first and foremost as a television series which would be broadcast in June of this year. The impression given was that the DVD would be a secondary thing, an offshoot, as it were, of the television broadcast. Unfortunately, at this point in time, I've not been informed that there will a definite UK TV broadcast. It seems that there's no guarantee that this will actually happen. However, the DVD has already been scheduled for an end of May release and has been advertised. I have to say that I didn't decide to take on this project simply for a DVD release. I genuinely believed that a UK television broadcast was the first and foremost reason for doing it. I was pursuaded that the publicity generated by a tv broadcast might outweigh the old-school, 'sign-it-all-away' nature of the contract. Anyway, perhaps I should withhold final judgement for now...I could be jumping to wrong conclusions. Perhaps my past career experiences and consequent distrust of the industry regarding this sort of thing are unduly colouring my interpretation of events...but, let's just say that I'll await further developments with interest. For now, all I can say is that I'm substantially out of pocket as a result of my involvement with the project. Perhaps I would not have chosen to enter into it, had I fully understood what was in store for us. Moving on... Spring has sprung! Wonderfully and joyously. Two weeks of deliciously warm and sunny weather. Weather that would have graced Summer magnificently, but, considering that this is only April, it seems little short of miraculous. The cherry blossom tree in our front garden has become...what's the word, fecund? Prolific? Ecstatic with pinkness? Well, pretty marvellous, anyway. Apple tree blossoms in the back garden too, and, divinely... pear! Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. Emi and I have been happily married for, what? 18 years? Well, we lived together for a couple of years before we tied the knot. I think it was '93 when we began our life together in England, though we'd spent time together in Tokyo first and had originally met way back in 1984. (Oh, the romance of it!) The nice thing is that it doesn't feel like so long ago at all. Our relationship is still fresh and tender. Emiko is a wonderful person and life without her would be unbearable. Last night we went to one of our favourite restaurants and afterwards came home to a bottle of champagne. I was given a book of Gnostic parables from Emi and I bought her a Nicole Farhi skirt that she'd spotted in a local store and very much liked. Our favourite clothes designers are Nichol Farhi, Margaret Howell, Adolfo Dominguez, Toast, Oska and some of the less, erm, 'blingy' Armani designs. Our taste leans towards the less commercially demonstrative brands but on a limited budget, it's hard to avoid the 'noisier' items these days. Most fashionistas seem hell bent on advertising, 'on jacket or shirt,' whatever particular brand of clothing they wear. Escaping label-brainwashing is not as easy as it might seem, although, for me, it is something to avoid whenever possible. Spending good money for the dubious privelege of becoming a walking billboard for some company or other seems like an insult to me. I simply want the clothes I purchase to flatter me, (as much as is possible at my somewhat advanced age), and to reflect my personal aesthetic taste. I don't give a damn whether it is considered fashionable, 'cool,' or not. Fashion is slavery, an illusion...but STYLE is beyond price, and timeless. Tomorrow is an anniversary of a much more melancholy sort. It will be five years ago tomorrow, (23 rd of April), that my much loved brother Ian passed away. Time flies so fast. Ian's photograph hangs on the wall of my studio, (as it has done these last five years). In the photograph, he is perpetually fixed at the age he was when we last toured together in 2004, his saxophone forever in his hands, eternally blowing his own personal blues. If only I could share a stage with him now. I've said this before but, I don't think I'll never recover from the shock of losing Ian. He left me, my mum, his family, with an emotional scar that never seems to heal. In that sense, we carry sweet Ian with us to the end of our days. We each of us, family members, bear him up in our own way, conjure his presence, remember his life, over and over and over again. My mother admitted to me the other day that she can't let Ian go, despite the passing of time. I understand perfectly how she feels, 'though I worry about how unhealthy this might be for her at the age of 82. Mum has become a constant source of concern for me. The unfair, shameful and cruel treatment she suffered as a result of the combination of losing her youngest son and then, a few years later, her husband, is hard to deal with. I try so hard to persuade her that life is still open for her, that she should seize opportunities and break out of the darkness that she has inherited, but her sense of loss and betrayal is hard to vanquish, though I continue to encourage her towards that goal. Last weekend, we took Mum to Knaresborough and Harrogate for the day. Sitting in the open air by the River Nidd in Knaresborough, eating warm apple pie and cold ice cream in the pleasant spring sunshine was a simple but lovely treat for us. We later had dinner at Graveley's Fish Restaurant in Harrogate, which Mum always enjoys whenever we take her there. But, sunshine aside, work is ever present . I've been pre-occupied with the EMI Be Bop Deluxe re-issues, (which are progressing at a veritable snail's pace). Lots going on with this, project but not enough to make sufficient progress, despite the time it seems to be stealing from my life. Until this thing is completed and put to bed it seems that the Cherry Red career retrospective box set will be on hold. I've spent many weeks, and indeed months, dealing with the proverbial 'Past' this year. I'm often accused of being dismissive of my career history, (though not without cause, in my opinion). You know, it's not as if I haven't given birth to a single musical idea since the 1970's, (unlike some artists). The opposite is the truth. The '70's constitute a fraction of my creative life. If anything, they are the aberration, the 'blip,' the wobble in the ether that surrounds me. In retrospect, they don't define my deeper sensibilities at all. Still, maybe this year is a consolidation of things, an illuminated viewing of the bigger picture, not just a lazy reflection of some cobwebby, long lost, teenage nostalgic past. Next month, (7th of May), I'm giving a concert in Sheffield as part of the city's annual 'Sensoria' festival. This will offer a deliberate contrast to the recent 'Legends' show. No '70's material will be performed whatsoever...no Be Bop Deluxe material or Red Noise either, in fact, no singing or rock music at all. Just me, solo, with a handful of shining guitars, a selection of my videograms, slo-mo, home-thoughts, drifting dreams. A gentle release, freedom, a pleasant opportunity to be absolutely myself rather than the ghost of someone else's past. I'm very much looking forward to it. Before then, LOTS to do. A new 12 minute long piece titled 'Happy Realms Of Light,' to work on, plus the mastering of backing tracks, (at Fairview, with John Spence), of the 15 other instrumental pieces set for inclusion at the Sheffield concert. A haircut to book with Steve too, before then. Also, videograms to co-ordinate, (with Paul's DVD assembly assistance), plus all sorts of other concert-live performance issues related to the upcoming Sheffield show. I'm way behind with all of this and, as usual, really should not be writing up diary entries. But: I feel guilty if I don't and guilty if I do... Books by my bed at the moment are: 'Homage To Pan.' (a book about the art and occult practices of Rosaleen Norton) by Neville Drury. 'Eighty Years Of Book Cover Design' by Joseph Connolly. 'The Wonderful Future That Never Was' by Gregory Benford. 'Ode To The Countryside, Poems To Celebrate The British Landscape.' (Edited by Samuel Carr.) 'The Gift (How The Creative Spirit Transforms The World.)' by Lewis Hide and 'Did You Really Shoot The Television? (A Family Fable.)' by Max Hastings. Meanwhile the Easter Caravan Tide overwhelms us: The seemingly endless arrival of mobile homes in the two fields next to our house...obese people with dogs parading up and down the lane, our kitchen window like a tv set attracting their curiosity: "Oooh, look! Country folk eating their dinner!" It resembles a crowded mobile housing estate out there at the moment. An infinity of little white boxes on wheels. I can't see the attraction of this sort of thing at all...getting away from home, only to park shoulder to shoulder with a couple of hundred other caravans packed into the same field? Not my idea of an escape from the daily grind, I'm afraid. But I guess some people prefer being amongst a crowd to quiet solitude. I guess I'm simply not the social type. Unfinished album projects: 'Model Village' and now, it seems, 'Fantasmatron.' (More of which later.) Enough diary for today. ***** The images accompanying this diary entry are as follows:- 1: Bill at Castle Howard surrounded by Spring. 2: Bill's Mum and Emi at Castle Howard, Spring 2011. 3: Bill's original artwork for the limited edition 'Sensoria' performance t-shirt. 4: Bethany Nelson, Ian Nelson's grand-daughter. 5: Ian's grave in Wakefield Cemetary, Spring 2011. 6: A flyer/advert for the 'Fantasmatron' album. Top of page

The Jewel Bill Nelson album - 9 April 2020 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) The Jewel 02) Girl From A Satellite Town 03) Twilight Crescent 04) Bikini Avanti 05) Dream Guitar 06) California Boombox 07) Royal Blue 08) Radio Control 09) That Sunburst Sound 10) Chroma 11) The Retro Modernist 12) Ablaze With Glory 13) Little Cosmos 14) The Great Magnetiser ALBUM NOTES: The Jewel is an album of guitar instrumental pieces issued on the Sonoluxe label in a limited edition of 600 copies. The album was first mentioned by Nelson as "almost finished" in a Dreamsville forum post dated 27 May 2016, with the album's running order announced just five days later on 1 June 2016. This brought the tally of unreleased albums to 13 at that point, a fact that caused Nelson sufficient anxiety to immediately begin work on a 14th album, which would in time be titled Powertron. While the album was fresh in Nelson's thoughts, he was sufficiently enthusiastic about The Jewel to consider issuing it as his next but one release (following New Northern Dream issued in October 2016) providing mastering and artwork duties could be completed reasonably quickly. However this plan was abandoned and the album would take almost 4 years to appear. The album was mastered at Fairview Studios by John Spence on 19th February 2020, with artwork compiled by Martin Bostock using images selected by Nelson as the album approached release. Pre-sale orders were taken by Burning Shed from 5th March 2020, with numbers being pressed to satisfy pre-sale orders. The album was released simultaneously as a digital download on Bandcamp on the 9th April 2020. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "The album was actually recorded in 2016 but has laid dormant for some years, (as so many other unreleased albums of mine have.) It's an instrumental album, not exactly what I might think of as 'easily accessible,' (though I'm sure some fans will disagree with that statement.) "It's an album of abstract guitar improvisations with ambient jazz interludes. Hopefully an album that will slowly worm its wicked way into listener's ears." _____ "To a certain degree, it's a 'niche' album, one that will appeal to fans of my more introspective guitar work. It's certainly not a 'rock' album. Nevertheless, those who enjoy less mainstream music may find that it resonates with them." _____ "The Jewel is just one of many previously unreleased albums that have been sitting in my archives for several years. Recorded in 2016 it is an instrumental work, an album of abstract, impressionistic guitarscapes and the occasional ambient jazz excursion, an album that will, hopefully, reveal more of its secrets with extended listening." Albums Menu Future Past

Furniture Music Bill Nelson's Red Noise single - 09 February 1979 Singles Menu Future Past TRACKS: A) Furniture Music B1) Wonder Toys That Last Forever B2) Acquitted By Mirrors ORIGINALLY: A) was from the upcoming Sound-On-Sound album B-sides) were both non-album tracks NOTES: Furniture Music was Nelson's first solo release since the Northern Dream album in 1971, and it appeared one week ahead of the Sound-On-Sound album, providing a glimpse of the abrupt change in style that Nelson's Red Noise project represented compared to Be Bop Deluxe. Red Noise comprised a semi-fluid line up, which on their debut single featured a trio of Andy Clark, retained from Be Bop Deluxe on piano and synthesisers, Rick Ford on bass guitar, and Nelson playing drums, Mini Moog, electric guitars and vocals. Furniture Music was available in red vinyl (limited edition) as well as black vinyl, with both editions coming in a picture sleeve. Interest in the single was sufficient to take it to No. 59 in the UK charts. PAST RELEASES: B1 was also available on the US version of Cocteau Signature Tunes comp (out of print). B2 was also available on The Strangest Things comp (out of print). CURRENT AVAILABILITY: All 3 songs were added to the remastered Sound-On-Sound CD from Harvest in 2012, which is now out of print in physical form, but available as digital download on Amazon and iTunes.. BILL'S THOUGHTS: "It was a relief [to go solo]...the doors were opened, windows too, and everything seemed possible. No need to explain myself to others, no need to adapt my ideas to musicians who might have found it difficult to understand where I was coming from, no compromises required other than those which I personally felt justifiable, no need to reflect anything other than my own hard-won experience, my own true story. No need to follow fickle fashion or the desperate dictates of an industry that, even then, was floundering and becoming lost. Going 'solo' gave me permission to express my personal, private world, my own 'vision', without need for discussion or dilution. In a word: It brought me the FREEDOM to be 100% creative!" _____ "I simply took the idea of 'white noise', (which is the presence of every possible frequency happening at the same time), and changed it to 'Red' to suggest something fast and fiery and also to hint at the socialist/communist image we adapted, partly from the Beatles Shea Stadium stage outfits, partly from Maoist Chinese revolutionary suits but also nodding towards a retro-futuristic Orwellian dystopia ." _____ "Remember...the same heart and mind that created Northern Dream and all the Be Bop Deluxe variations also created everything else I've released. From Northern Dream to Sailor Bill and all the stops in between, the one consistent thread is that mind and the idealistic pursuit of excellence. I've never experimented just for the sake of experimentation...I'm simply trying to define and refine my musical vision." Singles Menu Future Past

Chill & Kiss album - 1992 Ramon Tikaram Production/Contribution Menu Future Past BILL: Co-Producer, Guitar, Percussion and Synthesizer Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

Albion Dream Vortex Bill Nelson album - 2 September 2013 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Thought Bubble No 1 02) Behold These Present Days 03) Like A Boat In The Blue 04) Sparky And The Spearmint Moon 05) Tomorrow Will Not Be Too Late 06) Start Beaming And Get On The Gleam 07) We Who Are Awake Will Not Be Asleep 08) Thought Bubble No 2 09) Electrical Adepts Of The Celestial Bed 10) The Mastery Of The Thing 11) Albion Dream Vortex 12) Thought Bubble No 3 13) Long Ago, By Moonlit Sea 14) Let Us Melt And Make No Noise ALBUM NOTES: Albion Dream Vortex is an instrumental album issued in a one off print run of 1000 copies on the Sonoluxe label. Although generally print runs were now set at 500 copies, the fact that Nelson elected to issue Albion Dream Vortex in digipack artwork meant that he was forced to produce 1000 copies. The music that eventually made up the Albion Dream Vortex album was initially intended for a DVD project with the title Atom Totem Apparitions , which Nelson first made subtle reference to in April 2012. By November that year, Nelson revealed more recording details for the planned DVD project, including a track called "Mind is a Map of Sparkling Galaxies", that remains unreleased. By June 2013, Nelson had long abandoned the DVD idea in favour of what was, by then, the Albion Dream Vortex CD. His published running order at this point included as track 3 "Glisten", which had recently appeared on Blip 2 , leading Nelson to replace that track with "Like a Boat in the Blue" during the mastering sessions in July. Albion Dream Vortex sold out in the summer of 2019. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "Albion Dream Vortex is an instrumental album blending guitars and keyboards in a variety of styles. It contains subtle references to instrumental music I've made throughout my career, embracing ambient, electronic, vintage and modern, wrapped up in a dream-like vortex of sound. "The word 'Albion', for me, signifies the post-World War 2 era I grew up in. It also reminds me of a company called 'Albion Motors' who built art-deco styled buses in the 1930s and '40s. But 'Albion' is actually the oldest known name for the island of England and inevitably conjures up swirling spirits from the mysterious past. "The subject of dreams, their nature and purpose, has fascinated me since childhood. Dreams have also been a recurring motif in my creative life, and will continue to be so until, somewhere in the future, I will become little more than a flickering, ghostly dream of myself...atoms of memory, spluttering and sparkling like tiny fireworks in a long ago November sky. "We inhabit two worlds, one of which we assign to reality and the other to dreams. Our lives are spent half awake and half asleep, adrift in realms of reason and unreason. The boundary between these realms, for the artist, is often deliberately blurred, nebulous, ambiguous. Yet our creative imagination holds the ticket that allows us to travel between these two states and permits mysterious goods to be imported and exported. This luminous traffic, this flickering mystery, is the foundation of Albion Dream Vortex ." _____ "It's not written in an obvious, 'intro, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, repeat chorus, end' form. The music is rather more fluid, sometimes 'non-linear' and develops along different lines to a rock or pop song...It doesn't attempt to arrive at a particular stylistic conclusion but grows organically from point-to-point without being forced to make obvious 'points'. In that sense, its 'point' is simply to be pure music, music for its own sake, as much concerned with sound and atmosphere as note choices or hooks, etc. "Also, with this album as with several others of mine, no one track is meant to stand alone as the album's signifier (though the title track comes conceptually close). Instead, each track forms one single building block of an entire edifice. It's a complete album rather than a collection of separate tracks and should be 'read' as a whole construction, from start to finish. "Albion Dream Vortex treats you like an adult, doesn't talk baby language to you, doesn't feel the need to lead you by the hand through its mysterious corridors, but simply opens its doors for you to enter and explore. I hope, as you familiarise yourself with its twists and turns that you'll want to spend more and more time with it." _____ "If you enjoyed the trilogy of, Illuminated At Dusk , Mazda Kaleidoscope and Silvertone Fountains , then Albion Dream Vortex will carry you up the escalator of dreams to the next level." _____ "It's perhaps the most 'spiritual' (for want of a better word), album I've released for some time. Those of you who treasure deep listening will, I hope, truly appreciate this album for the rest of your lives..." _____ "With this watershed album, I aimed for a future that might humanise, console, enlighten and soften the day to day cruelties and unkindnesses we all endure. It's an album for the tender of heart and the strong in spirit. I hope it's for all of you. And, at this point in time, I think it is one of the very best, of this style, that I've ever recorded." _____ Bill's Listening Notes for the album: 'Albion Dream Vortex' Listening Notes FAN THOUGHTS: paul.smith: "It's turning into a solid, bona fideeeah! classic...and I really can't/won't stop playing it...probably what Bill wanted us to do...but this one just keeps moving on and on with its revelations of sound... "Behold These Present Days" has got to be one of my favourite tracks of the last decade...and I like a lot of what's gone on in the last decade... If you have overlooked this album for one reason or another, please be assured it is utterly essential if you like Bill's found voices/instrumental music...I have gained so much pleasure from this album in the short time since its release..." December Man: "ADV arrived on the West Coast USA yesterday like a beautifully packaged gift out of some future, musically evolved civilization -- a kind of reverse Time Capsule of musical things to come, things to look forward to! Like others, I put it on (wore it?) last night and HAD to listen to it from start to finish! Certainly Bill's best instrumental album to date and arguably his best work in any form! Congratulations, Mr. Nelson! Good stuff, sir! Met and exceeded my already high expectations of all you create! This album is simply a masterpiece in MHO. "The Mastery of the Thing" sums up the whole album! "Electrical Adepts of the Celestial Bed" is breathlessly beautiful, as I write and listen. Can't say enough about how good this is...so I better stop here. Back to Albion!" BenTucker: "For me, it's Mysterious & Beautiful 21st Century English Romantic Psychedelia - the same deep, rich seam (or labyrinth of seams) mined in The Dreamshire Chronicles and Fables and Dreamsongs , but all-instrumental. What incredibly lovely sounds, melodies, textures and moods it evokes." Pathdude: "After the first listen I must concur with other reviewers and state that this album is simply stunning. Lovers of Bill's instrumental music will not be disappointed. Something for everyone. Plus, added bonus, I think it will grow on you with repeated listenings. There are layers here people! "Behold These Present Days" has got a grip on me and won't let go. And I love it. Thank you Bill for this marvelous piece of work." felixt1: "Albion Dream Vortex": "Wow, what a beautiful track. More immersive synth, choral effects, birdsong, electric piano. Very mellow...and then a church bell rings and a distant bass drum strikes. The keys mutate gently and the woodwind section and layered strings begin...to take us further...My favourite so far. You could describe this album as a spiritual successor to And We Fell Into A Dream , although it is quite different again. I think Albion Dream Vortex delves deeper into the subconscious mind than the aforementioned, and as I have said, it really does entrance you at times, just as AWFIAD does but, it feels and sounds different somehow - it stands on its own." andygeorge: "The Mastery of the Thing"..."a beautiful, magical piece of Nelsonic wonderfulness from a terrific album...you've excelled yourself there Mr Bill." Chimera Man: "Like a Boat in the Blue": "...achingly gorgeous." Puzzleoyster: "We Who Are Awake Will Not Be Asleep": "A track which never ceases to excite and amaze regardless of ultra repeating. The track soars hammers and collects the musical matter from its own universe like gossamer from a spiders web which has the same density of steel. A BEAUTIFUL fizz bang... synths piano fills Bass guitar soars upwards from a Beautiful Bill guitar solo, synth fills to accompany a fanfare. All over too soon...but a definitive guitar rolls out the outro, the guitar has the last word. How very apt..." Returningman: "If you don't have this in your collection yet you are missing a rare and precious gem of an album." "Thanks Bill for enriching my life with this mellow gem." steve lyles: "As always superb...really am continuously baffled as to Bill's ability to create such deep beautiful emotional and intellectually interesting music..." garyd: "Currently listening to my recently purchased Albion Dream Vortex . Oh my. My Dad raised me to see everyone as equal. He knew nothing!!" Prey: "Bill Nelson was light years ahead of the rest in the 70's with Modern Music , Sunburst Finish and Futurama , I have said here many times, I knew it then, and after listening to Albion Dream Vortex I am still convinced Bill produces the music others may do someday, but for now we get a preview of the future right here, right now. I do have one fear - this CD is so good I can't see how it's possible to make it better, so future releases may damage your reputation." Albums Menu Future Past

Ancient Guitars A collection of Bill's guitars and various other stringed instruments... More coming soon!

Six String Super Apparatus Bill Nelson album - 1 December 2016 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Blackpool Pleasure Beach And The Road To Enlightenment 02) Nebulous Trolleybus 03) Andromeda Gardens 04) A Telescope Full Of Stars 05) Dance Of The Cosmic Signaller No. 2 06) Preamp 07) Hotel On Wheels 08) Spacehopper 09) Naughty Boy, Dirty Girl 10) When The World Was Beautiful 11) Happily Haunted 12) Two Brothers Test The Kite Flying Winds ALBUM NOTES: Six String Super Apparatus (Painting with Guitars Volume Three) is an instrumental album issued on Nelson’s own Tremelo Boy Records. The album is the third volume in an ongoing series entitled Painting with Guitars , which collects songs that Nelson had been performing live over the previous two decades, but which had yet to find their way onto albums. The first volume was The Romance of Sustain , the second was Plectrajet , and the fourth will be Astral Overdrive (scheduled to be released in 2017). Volumes two through four of the series were assembled during a 1 month stretch starting in February 2015. The project was the fulfillment of a long-standing promise by the artist to release the hoard of tracks, some of which had become favourites of fans who attended his live performances. In fact, the final track selection for these volumes were partly shaped by a small number of Dreamsville members who would remind Nelson of particular tracks they remembered fondly. The series also marked the end of an era for Nelson, who had all but given up live performances, due to continuing problems with his hearing. Six String Super Apparatus was issued as a download only release on December 1st, 2016. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . IF YOU LIKED THIS ALBUM, YOU'LL PROBABLY ENJOY: Romance of Sustain , Plectrajet , Practically Wired , Fantastic Guitars, Plaything , The Awakening of Dr Dream , Confessions of a Hyperdreamer , Modern Moods for Mighty Atoms , Luxury Lodge , Tripping The Light Fantastic BILL'S THOUGHTS: "There are a few rarities amongst these...some pieces that have only been performed live once or twice, but some more regular numbers too, which have featured in my solo concerts more frequently." _____ "It's an album loaded with guitars and will form a further component in the gathering together of tracks from my concerts.” _____ "There's a certain adjunct between rock music and jazz which can often be missed by the casual listener. I'm thinking here of the free-flowing lines of Jimi Hendrix which have often been compared to the 'sheets of sound', or 'constant flux' approach to music such as those of jazz luminaries like John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman, (to mention just a few possibilities). This open-ended, unscripted, spontaneous attitude towards playing is frought with dangers but also potential wonders. It requires a kind of bravery, a willingness to step out beyond the familiar, pre-scripted lines that most musicians rely on and literally 'launch one's self off the cliff' and hope that fair winds and flying boats will carry the music into the blue sky. As the years go by, (and weigh more heavily on me), I'm increasingly drawn to the potential for entirely spontaneous playing, a sort of instant composition approach, but with nothing in mind other than the starting point with everything else being left entirely to chance. Sometimes this will bring melodic ideas to bear, other times abrasive ones, other times subtle inflections and sophisticated nuances, and othertimes just a sheer, exuberant, torrent of sound. Listening to today's transfer of my live solo concert tracks for the Six String Super Apparatus album, I was struck with the apparent open-ended, improvistional approach that emerged from the recordings. I'm not for one second implying that my music is in the exalted John Coltrane sphere...but, at times, it does seem to have something of the same spirit. A free, blowing, 'go wherever it will' attitude, which I find both flawed and yet perfect at the same time. It creates something with a combination of beauty and grit." FAN THOUGHTS: Big Dunc: "First impressions...Bloody Superb" andygeorge: "This is pure guitar heaven! Bill will probably dismiss this as a side project, something he can knock out in his sleep, (which he probably can!)...but, boy, this sounds soooo good!" Coach Matt: "Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the Road to Enlightenment": "Need I say anymore, as the hair elevates on my skin. This track grabbed me right away. Just makes me want to plug in, crank it up and play along. Fabulous guitar playing over a smashing, smooth bottom groove. Takes you sailing away on blissful roller coaster ride. I just dig this style of Bill and can never get enough! The groove and guitar is edgy, yet charming." Peter: "It is a guitar lover's dream come true – it has rock, jazz, blues, ambient...it has everything, the entire Bill Nelson canon collected in one place. Every technique, every effect...all interwoven into Bill's usual sterling compositions. Each song offers moments of "Oh, wow..." and "Oh, that's SO good". All instrumentals, this album has power, emotion, style, delicacy, grace, polish, joy...it is a showcase of Bill's mastery of both songwriting and guitar playing. It is a masterpiece." Pathdude: "This is another album of gorgeous Bill Nelson guitar music. If you liked Romance of Sustain or Plectrajet , you'll like this one. Quite a variety of sounds and styles. Personal favorite track right now is "When the World was Beautiful". Bravo Bill, another masterpiece!" Comsat Angel: "As always, another outstanding album!" RJR: "Very nice collection of songs. I don't know if it was intended, but at times there seem to be certain guitar playing that hearken back to the 80's, even some BBD." Neill_Burgess: "Six String Super Apparatus is a treat for anyone fortunate enough to have seen and heard Bill playing any of these tracks live in recent years, and it's a treat for anyone who missed the concerts. So, basically, it's a treat!" "It's a fairly varied set (space blues, big guitar heroics, gentler numbers) and the tracks fit together to form a coherent whole. Personal favourite is the joyous opener "Blackpool Pleasure Beech and the Road to Enlightenment". If you like Practically Wired , or the aforementioned The Romance of Sustain and Plectrajet , you'll love this." Sauropod: "I'm finding nowadays that whenever Bill releases a new album, it usually takes several listens to take it all in, even approaching things from a guitarist's point of view. They have a consistently high quality to them which I really appreciate and enjoy. "Andromeda Gardens" - This still remains my favorite track from the album after repeated listens. The use of a baritone guitar (?) on it sets the song apart from all the others on the album. One word sums it up - sublime. "Happily Haunted" - This is the one song from the record with a really memorable hook. If I were a record exec, this would be the one I would choose as the single. Summary/rating: I would rate this as a "must buy". It is, in my opinion, amongst the top 10% of Bill's output." james warner: "As has been the case with previous relatively low-key releases, I find myself enjoying this album more immediately than some of the 'fanfare' releases. Maybe it's because there is no concept to it, just a collection of really good tunes. There is a sense of sass and strut about many of the tracks, suggesting Bill was relaxed and having fun recording it. There are dreamy interludes, too, so this is an album with something for everyone." Prey: "WOW, the wizard of Wakefield brings the big notes to us for Christmas! An amazing journey through guitar heaven, thank you!" Albums Menu Future Past

A collection of Bill Nelson memorabilia, pictures submitted by fans. Fan Memorabilia A collection of memorabilia pictures submitted by fans! If you would like yours included, please get in touch

The Best of and the Rest of Be Bop Deluxe retrospective collection - December 1978 Be Bop Deluxe Collections Menu Future Past TRACKS: A1) Axe Victim A2) Maid In Heaven A3) Music In Dreamland A4) Sister Seagull A5) Sleep That Burns A6) Ships In The Night B1) Blazing Apostles B2) Kiss Of Light B3) Dance Of The Uncle Sam Humanoids B4) Forbidden Lovers B5) Panic In The World C1) Blimps C2) Autosexual C3) Lovers Are Mortal C4) Shine C5) Quest For The Harvest Of The Stars D1) Japan D2) Speed Of The Wind D3) Lights D4) Blue As A Jewel D5) Face In The Rain D6) Futurist Manifesto NOTES: The Best of and the Rest of Be Bop Deluxe is a double album that brilliantly brought together an album of highlights taken from the band's five studio albums and an album of rarities, including at the time of release, 6 previously unreleased tracks and 5 non album 'A' side or 'B' side cuts. Housed in a wonderfully illustrated gatefold sleeve with inner sleeves bearing lyrics and musician credits for all tracks, the album was a fitting tribute to a band that had bowed out less than six months earlier. Despite a number of subsequent reissues and archive releases issued since this impressive collection first appeared, one of the previously unreleased tracks, "Face in the Rain", remained exclusive to this set right up until Esoteric Recordings produced their super-deluxe box sets. The rest of the rarities have re-appeared first as bonus cuts on the Be Bop Deluxe albums when released on CD in 1991, and more recently on the Futurist Manifesto 1974-1978 box set issued in 2012. PAST RELEASES: 16 of the 22 tracks on this compilation album had originally appeared spread across the band's five albums and four of the band's 7" singles issued on Harvest between 1974 and 1978. See individual entries of those albums and singles for full details. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: This compilation is now out of print. Collections Menu Future Past

Acquitted By Mirrors - Issue Two - Published June 1982 Back to Top

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 William's Study (Diary Of A Hyperdreamer) November 2007 Jan Feb Apr May Jul Sep Oct Dec Saturday 3rd November 2007 -- 4:00 pm Although the following diary entry has only just been posted, I began writing it on the 29th of October, intending to post the following day. However, various post-Nelsonica distractions have taken up the time that I intended to devote to it. So, rather than re-write the whole thing to suit its later appearance on my website, I'll add the most recent section at the end. Monday 29th October 2007 -- 6:00 pm. Still trying to take in the fact that this year's Nelsonica convention was, on Saturday, finally seen through to its proper conclusion. And with real style and panache too. I'm now able to wake up without the sense of panic that has filled my life these last couple of months. The event was a joy on all levels. The feedback from attendees, both on the day and afterwards on the Dreamsville forum, has been joyously positive. The most commonly expressed opinion is that this was the best Nelsonica to date and in the best venue so far. A happy result, especially after all the hard work that the convention team and myself had put into the creation of the event. I've recently found myself wondering whether Nelsonica is a sensible thing to continue to stage, especially when so many other projects demand my attention throughout the year. And this year has seen one task bleed seamlessly into another, leaving no time to gather my wits or recover energy. I'm ashamed to admit that all kinds of things have suffered as a result. I'm way behind with answering emails from friends, even close friends. My family haven't had the attention from me that they deserve, and I feel as if my emotional and physical batteries have been drained to the point where the world flows through me with hardly a blip on my internal radar. These last few months I've been working in a kind of fog, a mysterious, hypnotic state, guided by things beyond my control. It's been instinct and improvisation, thinking on my feet, flying by the seat of my pants, playing it by ear. Somehow, though, it gets there in the end. Things fall into place and the target is hit, albeit with the collusion of smoke and mirrors. The life of an independent artist certainly imposes peculiar and surreal demands, demands that I never had to think about when I was, (many years ago now), somewhat more 'gainfully employed.' People I worked with at that time said "don't give up your day job..." The truth is, despite the inevitable struggles and frustrations, I think I'd put up with just about anything not to have to return to the life I lived before I threw myself 100% into the arms of the muse. The work I do now makes the desk job I once held down feel like sonambulism. Those days of shuffling paperwork from one side of the desk to another and back, the glassy-eyed answering of office telephones and the ritual morning and evening clocking in and out, the endless rattling of filing cabinets and the gossipy whisper of inter-departmental political intrigue. All the sly, prejudiced comments I endured, simply because I wore a pink satin tie to work or didn't happen to have taken in last night's football on tv, or watched a popular soap opera or game show, or 'gone down the pub' with the boys or bought the latest Eurovision hit single. Hard to believe, nowadays, the insults that my disinterest in these things aroused in ostensibly, superficially decent people. But I've learned, over all these years, that fear of the unfamiliar or 'the different,' drives vitriol through the fuse. And, by the standards of local government politics back then, I must have appeared very unfamiliar. Sometimes, it was purgatory. So much so that I often dreaded going to work, simply because of the sly ridicule I'd have to endure. Liberal attitudes, an open mind, any sense of cultural adventure or notions of racial and sexual tolerance, (in fact ALL the hard-won advances of the 'sixties counter-culture), were regarded by these staunchly conservative fundamentalists as some kind of left-wing plot. It wasn't that I didn't TRY to communicate with my fellow workers, but the look of incomprehension in their eyes if I tried to explain what kind of things turned me on and why. Well...looking back now, it seems astonishing that such self-imposed limits of taste and ambition were regarded as some kind of 'standard.' I did what I could to understand and accept these attitudes but still found them disturbing, even a little frightening. I certainly felt intimidated. Things have changed these days though...haven't they? Well, we like to think so but I suspect we're not much further down the road to enlightenment. Thatcher's bastard offspring are everywhere, even in the damned government. Bearing in mind my natural inclination to plough my own furrow, I suppose it was inevitable that I would be regarded by certain captains of the office ship as some sort of freak from the deep, caught up in the local government net by an accident ofindiscriminate trawling. Certainly not one of their own but an unwelcome and uncertain entity. Maybe even, (check out that pink silk tie, boys), a raving queer! The first week I worked there, I accidentally overheard an office conversation. It went something like this: " Have you seen the new boy? He looks ill, like a skelton, too skinny, too pale. Something's wrong. I think he's on drugs. Dresses like a homo too. Wouldn't surprise me..." The speaker didn't know I'd overheard him. But I was just the other side of an office partition when these words were spoken. I've never forgotten them. Why? Because they didn't know or understand the first thing about me yet were prepared to pronounce judgement in such a dissmissive way. In truth, I couldn't have cared less about their accusations of homosexuality. I'd never been remotely homophobic, though from their derisory tone, I could tell they were probably typical of their generation. Back then, the slightest sartorial flamboyance got you labelled 'a puff.' I was actually mildly amused by the fact that they couldn't really work that side of me out. I considered myself to be reasonably sophisticated regarding sexual matters, knew exactly which side of the fence I sat on and was confident enough about my own hetrosexual orientation not to need to rush to its defence in these situations. What really got to me was the implication that I was ill, or strung out on something or other, no, maybe not even that, just the sheer audacity that they could presume to sum me up in such banal, conservative and inaccurate terms. The John Lennon/Yoko Ono 'Two Virgins' calendar that I pinned on the wall next to my desk in the office didn't help matters either. I soon found out that it was o.k. to pin up the usual cheescake busty nudes from the men's mags of the day but a naked John and Yoko was one nipple too far, even though they had their backs turned to the camera. Two obviously deviant perverts was how they were seen by the people sitting in the office with me. In their eyes John n' Yoko were nothing but anarchistic, dope-smoking hippies...filth, symbolising everything that was wrong with the country, eroders of 'true British values,' (and one of 'em was bloody Japanese for Christs sakes! Didn't we fight a war to rid ourselves of these types?) They gazed at the calendar, then gazed at me in horror. I was told to take it down or face serious consequences. Truth be told, I wore their angry glances like glittering medals. Their hatred felt like a badge of honour. I was glad to be the office enigma. But then, I was young, idealistic, enthusiastic, culturally ambitious. I shared none of their traditional aspirations although I quietly envied what seemed to me their lack of any philosophical complexity. The world to them was a simple thing, subject to a black and white moral and ethical absoluteness. There were no shades of grey and certainly no spectrum of colours. They regarded themselves as guardians of the British flame and anyone who dared disagree was labelled weird, crazy or worse. Of course, in many ways, I was just as ignorant of them as they were of me. Let's just say, I was ill equipped to be a local government officer. The beaurocratic ink was dry in my well. Nevertheless, I did try. I stuck it out, switching off at five pm every day, like everyone else, and never giving it another thought 'till next morn. The evenings were all mine, for writing, for drawing, for playing guitars and dreaming. I eventually was able to take those youthful dreams and blew air into them, float them over Wakefield's grey skies, and set their sails for tomorrow. And the only compass I had to guide me was that of my imagination. I had to escape and my need to do so may sometimes have appeared to others as ruthless, 'though that wasn't my intention. But that's what I did. One day, I walked away from it. And here I am now, doing what I once could only dream of. And now I complain that I'm exhausted. And still misunderstood. But, in reality..? I'm blessed. It's been a long hard struggle in many ways but I lead the life of an artist, not a pop star or rock guitarist. I've fought for the right to be free of all that. I hope it goes a little deeper. As always, I've drifted off-topic. I was trying to come to terms with the possibility of abdicating from the annual Nelsonica pressure. I don't think that I really could though. Abandon the convention, I mean. Whatever the mental uncertainties and physical stresses and strains, after Saturday's warm reception from the Nelsonica audience, and the wonderful support from the team, it's hard for me to think about drawing a line under the convention at all. It's become a surrogate family gathering with a group of people at its core who have been with me for some years. They're as committed and inventive as ever and it's impossible not to be swept along on their waves of energy and enthusiasm. I hope that they realise just how much their support means to me. Sometimes, it's difficult to communicate this without appearing maudlin or overly sentimental, but they're absolute gems, every one of them. I suppose I've never been particularly adept at expressing emotion, other than through my music. Other people, those really close to me, may disagree with this damning self-analysis, but that's my sorry take on it. Maybe it's because I'm frightened of pain and mortality and therefore scared of losing people who I deeply care for, (who isn't?) Perhaps I build barriers against losing them, or, even more so, them losing me. It's that old Buddhist thing of suffering though, isn't it? Existence is suffering. He was spot on, old Siddhartha. Absolutely on the money. Nevertheless, despite his realisation of suffering, (or because of it), he became a healer of souls and minds, an optimist, a viewer of the bigger picture. No one deserves trouble, no one deserves illness, no one deserves death and depression. The cruelty is that, whatever we DO deserve, we rarely achieve it. Things are generally unfair. Shit hits the fan with a regular dull thud. Suffering is as much our lot as breathing. To witness the struggle of others to maintain some sort of decency in the teeth of life's hurricane is often so heartbreaking that we avert our gaze. I've turned mine away too many times to presume the slightest hint of strength or honour in these matters. I look to those who prevail and endure and maintain their dignity in difficult circumstances with nothing but envy and admiration. And a deep sense of my own inadequecy and shame. And that's enough self-immolation for now, thank you very much. I'm going to open a bottle of wine and taste the sunshine. It's now Friday, 2nd of November. Time has moved on, as usual. Some of the above was written at intervals during the last week. I won't bother to date each tiny section, just the largest chunks. Nelsonica 07 was one week ago tomorrow. The pace hasn't slowed and I still owe some good people emails. Went to see Honeytone Cody at 'Fibbers' on Wednesday. The sound mix lost too much of Elliot's guitar for my liking but they played with their usual dark energy and mysterious atmospheres...and in Halloween costumes too. Even the staff in our village Co-op looked like extras from a Hammer horror movie. The young man who served me my 'Independent' newspaper was wrapped from head to toe in white bandages, like an Egyptian mummy. The parts of his face that were visible were covered in white makeup with dark rings shaded around his eyes. Fake blood oozed from gaps in the bandages at certain points of his body. He took my money and handed me the change as if there was nothing unusual about his appearance whatsoever . "You're looking well," I said. Elliot called 'round today to show me his new car. He's very proud of it and rightly so. My old banger is rotting on it's wheels. rust oozing from the inside out. Just had to spend almost four hundred pounds to get it through its MOT certificate. Two new tyres, a new silencer, couple of other things. I've had the car some years now and need to change it before it becomes totally worthless. But there are household/domestic priorities that need money spending on too. They're getting to the point where they can't go on in their present condition much longer. It's the same old story: As soon as any earnings come in, they're immediately spoken for. But, that's life. Dug out some black n' white photos that I took when I was working with The Skids in Rockfield Studios in Wales, a LONG time ago now. I'd created a cartoon/graffiti drawing, on the studio control room doors, of an alien family. I'd built it up a little at a time, over the duration that we were working there. (I've attached the pictures to this diary.) Also found some photos of myself with Elle and Elliot taken in the South Of France whilst on holiday. (Holiday? What's that?) Must have been a long time ago because they are so young. And I was so slim! Also found another picture of the first house I owned, 27, Anderson St. Wakefield. And a black n' white photo' taken of Haddlesey House from part way down the garden. It brought home the distance I'd travelled from Anderson Street to West Haddlesey. Quite a contrast! And all on the strings of a guitar. Things change constantly, of course, and that wonderful 3-acre garden is now a bland executive housing estate. And, in the intervening years since I lived there, I've been without a home of my own, then living with friends in Japan, then in rented accomodation, (for which I had to sell my guitars to pay the rent), and now in a home bought by my sweet Emiko from the sale of her Tokyo apartment. And I've got guitars again. Things are always in flux but two things I've learned to trust are love and music. It's 10:20 pm and I've had enough of sitting in front of this screen for today. I'll try to complete this entry tomorrow, 'though there are several things already scheduled to take my attention away from it. My friend Dave Standeven is calling round in the morning to collect Steve (Cook's) keyboards and amps which he left here last week, after Nelsonica. Dave's van should be able to accomodate them and then I can shift my own gear upstairs. It's all still in the hall and dining room as I need to clear Steve's stuff before I can find space in the spare bedroom to store everything. It's a real jigsaw puzzle, getting it all to fit into the house. Saturday 3rd November 2007 -- Afternoon. Dave called and we put Steve's gear in the van. Steve's ancient Fender Rhodes piano, which has been stored here since the 2004 tour, was a real backbreaker to get down stairs. How people used to lug those things around on a regular basis back in the '70's is beyond me. My lower back muscles have gone into spasm just dragging it from the spare bedroom downstairs and out to Dave's van. We're going to our friend's bonfire/fireworks party tonight. Lots of booms and whizz bangs. If my back holds out. Must make sure the cats are safely inside though. Just the two of them now...the two we've domesticated, 'Tink' and 'Django.' The others fell victim to our neighbours' desire to rid the area of them. Some went to the Cat's Protection League, some to a farm elsewhere, some mysteriously disappeared, and one, gentle and elegant Gizmo, was hit and killed by a speeding driver travelling at hellish speed down the lane outside our house. The two we've domesticated, (they were originally semi-feral), are funny, affectionate and dependent upon us. We'll have to sort out a cattery for the four days we're away in Paris. Something else to organise as soon as possible. Looking forward to our Paris break. I've finally got everything booked, Eurostar and a hotel. Have to decide on clothes to take yet though. Must make an effort to be stylish...it is Paris, after all. I'll make a start on the packing next week. I'm about to telephone my mother for a chat now, so will close here. Hard to take in that Nelsonica was exactly one week ago today. Time, as one strange scientific theory has it, is definitely speeding up. ***** The images accompanying this diary entry are as follows:- 1: Dreamsville Art Advert. 2: Bill Nelson on stage in the USA, 1980's. 3: Bill, Elle and Elliot in St. Paul, France. '80's. 4: Bill's Rockfield Studio art . 5: 27, Anderson St. 6: Haddlesey House, early '80's. Top of page Thursday 29th November 2007 -- 8:00 pm. Got back from Paris just over one week ago, 'though it now feels much longer than that. The timing of our French break was a little unfortunate as it coincided with a civil service strike which shut down the Metro system and caused traffic chaos in the city for the duration of our stay. It was difficult to get around and as a result, taxi's were almost impossible to find unoccupied. Emi and I eventually resigned ourselves to walking almost everywhere. Of course, walking in Paris is no great ordeal as the architecture is so breathtakingly beautiful, but the weather was cold and wet and we were glad of the warm clothing we'd packed. Despite the cold, we found ourselves stopping regularly to admire the exquisite details of the buildings, pointing out to each other little twists and turns of ironwork, the patina on door handles, the sculpting of stonework, the proportions of window frames, the art-nouveau richness of the stained-glass and so on. We also discovered exquisite, independent shops and galleries in the narrow streets of St. Germain Des Pres, not too far from our hotel in Montparnasse. I bought books at the 'Village Voice' bookshop and some beautiful little ruby red cut-glass, engraved goblets at a very chic interior design boutique. We also enjoyed browsing in the 'Agnes B' boutique, (one of our favourite designers, along with Margaret Howell, Paul Smith and Dries Van Noten), though the prices were high enough to be thought of as silly and certainly beyond our reach.. However, Emiko DID buy me an Agnes B black scarf that I took a shine to. It is to be one of my Christmas presents from her so has been hidden away until then. Our hotel, ('Hotel Raspail'), was situated on the junction of Boulevard Montparnasse and Boulevard Raspail, (actually on 'Place Pablo Picasso'), just across the road from three legendary restaurants, 'Le Dome,' 'La Coupole' and 'La Rotonde.' Whilst these venerable establishments are not quite what they were in the days when Montparnasse was an artist's village, the ghosts of Picasso, Man Ray, Leger, Kiki, Cocteau, Hemmingway, and even Lenin and Trotsky still haunt this area. It was once a vortex of creative energy, lit by the electricity of new ideas. Emi and I breakfasted at 'La Rotonde' and ate lunch at 'Cafe Flore' and 'Les Deaux Magots,' savouring the atmosphere and watching the elegant Parisians go about their daily business. I'm sure Emi caught me admiring the French babes out of the corner of my eye too, but she's magnaminous enough to not make a fuss. Jealousy is, thankfully, not her suite, 'though I'm sure she'd let me know if I ever overstepped the mark! On the Monday, we walked all the way to the Musee D'Orsay, only to find it closed. Damn, should have made enquiries first. So we walked a little further, crossed the Seine via Pont Royal and continued to the Louvre where we enjoyed a satisfying lunch with wine and an afternoon wandering through the museum's antiquities section, marvelling at the endless treasures on display. Afterwards, I bought myself cologne at the 'Fragonard' shop before ambling gently back through the charming streets of St. Germain (and the wintery weather), to our hotel, pausing to inspect more magical shop discoveries en route. That evening we went to the 'Casino D'Paris' to catch Rufus Wainwright in concert. He was his usual utterly charming and humungously talented self, chatting amusingly in French throughout the show and singing his heart out like the 21st Century Diva he is. This is the third time we've seen him perform live. I'm not in the habit of going to see concerts at all, these days, let alone three by the same artist in a concentrated period of time. But there's something about the boy. My only regret about this particular show is that I lost my favourite hat there, a black 'beanie' style cap that I often wore on stage at my own concerts. (Most recently at Nelsonica.) It suited me and is kind of irreplacable as that particular style isn't easy to come by at this point in time, at least in the U.K. (Not high street fashion, I suppose.) Anyway, I'd stuffed it into my coat pocket during the Rufus' concert, only to discover later that it had gone missing. I also lost my bio-magnetic bracelet in Paris, though I can't say that the aches and pains I bought it to relieve have become worse since it fell from my wrist somewhere in the Parisian streets, or maybe on the train coming back to the U.K. Getting a taxi back to Montparnasse after Rufus' concert wasn't easy. We'd met up with four of our friends from York at the show, (they'd travelled by car and ferry whilst we'd opted for Eurostar). We had dinner with them at a swish restaurant the previous evening. It was the first time they'd seen Rufus live and were duly impressed. I particularly enjoyed his beautifully sung version of 'A Foggy Day In London Town,' but then I'm a sucker for those old standards. After the show, we all decided to find a cafe bar to hole up in until the audience had dispersed, (beer and frites all round), then we waited at a taxi-rank until cabs arrived. Emi and I eventually got back to our hotel in the early hours and then packed in preparation for Tuesday's trip back home to England. On Tuesday morning, there was some panic about getting to Gare Du Nord from our hotel. The hotel receptionist said, with a stereotypical French waving of arms in the air, that it would prove impossible to get a cab but, miraculously, one arrived within minutes of our requesting it and we got to the station in plenty of time. I'm very impresssed with Eurostar. It was quick and comfortable and we were served champagne, wine and reasonably decent food. It really felt quite effortless. In fact, the least comfortable part of the journey was that from London back to Yorkshire on the standard GNER train, not least because of the boorish yobs in some of the coaches. I've reached the age where 'youthful high spirits' translates as 'ignorant louts,' I'm afraid. But this kind of senior-citizen grumpiness comes to us all, in time, I presume. Since returning home, it's been domestic catch-up time. The Nelsonica preparations occupied me for many weeks and, as a result, more prosaic tasks have accumulated. Mountains of emails to answer too. One of the first things we did on returning from Paris was to spring Django and Tink, (our feline friends), from the cattery where we'd left them. It was the first time they'd been away from their home environment and I was concerned about them whilst we were away...Needless to say, they appeared pleased to be back in familiar surroundings. Since we decided to look after them as domestic pets, (earlier this year), they've become a soulful part of the family and our home wouldn't feel the same without them now. Even though there's a LOT to occupy me domestically, I'm still thinking about musical work. Whenever am I not? I'm currently assembling an 'experimental' running order of tracks that will probably make up my next album. The album's title is 'SILVERTONE FOUNTAINS' and, at this moment in time, it consists of 16 instrumentals, a few of them left over from the now abandoned 'Frankie Ukelele And The Fire In The Lake' album. I'm planning to give the Nelsonica Team members a home burned cdr of the album's draft running order, (each CDr with an individually hand-drawn cover), at the annual team dinner party on the 1st December. Last year, I gave each of the team members framed drawings but thought that a preview of 'Fountains' with home-made packaging might be a nice idea for this year's dinner get-together. The album is still a work in progress though...I may yet decide to set aside some of the tracks for next year's limited edition Nelsonica album, whilst continuing to record further pieces for possible inclusion on 'Silvertone Fountains.' We'll see. here's the experimental track listing. (It will most likely channge by the time the album is released though.) 'Silvertone Fountains.' -BILL NELSON- (Experimental assembly only.) 1: 'The Fabulous Whirligig Of Now.' 2: 'Silvertone Fountains.' 3: 'Switch On The Sky, Light Up The Stars.' 4: 'The Walls Of Which Are Made Of Clouds.' 5: 'Marvelous Model Kit.' 6: 'No Memories Here To Make You Sad.' 7: 'Art Is My Aeroplane.' 8: 'The Standard Fireworks Stomp.' 9: 'Silver Sailboat On Samsara Sea.' 10: 'Summer Over Soon.' 11: 'Frankie Ukelele And The Fire In The Lake.' 12: 'The Phonograph Bird.' 13: 'Lakeside.' 14: 'The Lost Art Of Doing Nothing.' 15: 'Frankie Surfs The Milky Way.' 16: 'We Vanish At Shadowfall.' It's one of those albums that seems to be slowly evolving or mutating into something I can't yet quite grasp. The album has already been through several changes, giving birth to the 'And We Fell Into A Dream' album and parts of 'Secret Club' en route. And all this started from the 'Frankie Ukelele' concept. I wonder what the final result will be? The pleasure, for me, of course, is in the finding out, rather than in the end product itself. Once I feel it's arrived at its musical destination, I'll move on to the next thing, with my usual lack of interest in work completed. Current reading: 'Tripmaster Monkey, His Fake Book' by Maxine Hong Kingston. 'The Underground Man' by Mick Jackson. And 'Considering Genius, Writings On Jazz,' by Stanley Crouch. Oh, and Eric Clapton's autobiography, (this last a gift from a generous fan at Nelsonica). Current listening, (mostly in my car): Les Paul, Johnny Smith, Bill Frisell, Wes Montgomery, Chet Atkins and a selection of 1930's popular songs by various long dead artists. Nothing remotely modern, rock-oriented or new. Must be that age thing again. My problem is that I've heard so much music during my lifetime that work by younger artists rarely surprises me anymore. (There are a few exceptions, of course.) It all seems to be a re-hash of something originally made years ago at a time when the idea was really fresh. Even current day contemporary composition, the nouveau avant-garde, seems to be going over old ground. Some of it very nicely raked, but not startlingly cultivated or filled with beautiful and exotic blooms. Perhaps it's no longer possible, (or even important), to come up with anything truly new. Nevertheless, I tend to listen to music where the process of making it is invisible to me, where I can't quite understand how it's put together, technically or academically. I crave the surprise of not-knowing. Listening to ancient, promitive recordings of beautifully written and arranged music by the great composers and songwriters from the '30's and '40's appeals because, as well as being aesthetically beautiful, the music's inner clockwork remains a mystery to me. And, even more than this, I can hear time itself crackling in the ploughed circular furrows of the music's black plastic sound field. It conveys a poetic quality, a wistful, yearning dreaminess, a sophisticated, elegant sensibility transmitted from an imagined 'Golden Age.' At least, that's how I feel as I type these words. I may feel less romantic about it tomorrow. But mellow is my mood right now. ***** Images accompanying this diary are:- 1: Hotel Raspail, Paris. 2: Bill Nelson in Paris. November 2007. 3: Dreamsville windmill ad. 4: Dreamsville girl ad. 5: Dreamsville ad. Top of page

Guitar Tablature A fantastic selection of songs that Dreamsville regular Twilightcapers has give n his very own interpretation of. These may not be 100% accurate, we'll leave it for you to decide! After all...only Bill knows how they were actually played!!! If you're new to guitar tablature, check out this handy tutorial! Be Bop Deluxe Adventures In A Yorkshire Landscape Autosexual Axe Victim Beauty Secrets Between The Worlds Bird Charmers Destiny Blazing Apostles Blue As A Jewel Bring Back The Spark Crying To The Sky Crystal Gazing Dangerous Stranger Darkness (L'Immoraliste) Red Noise A Better Home In The Phantom Zone Acquitted By Mirrors Art/Empire/Industry Atom Age Don't Touch Me (I'm Electric) For Young Moderns Furniture Music Out Of Touch Radar In My Heart Stay Young Stop/Go/Stop Substitute Flesh Wonder Toys That Last Forever Down On Terminal Street Electrical Language Face In The Rain Fair Exchange Forbidden Lovers The Gold At The End Of My Rainbow Heavenly Homes Islands Of The Dead Jean Cocteau Jets At Dawn Jet Silver And The Dolls Of Venus Kiss Of Light Life In The Air Age Lights Like An Old Blues Love In Flames Love Is Swift Arrows Lovers Are Mortal Love With The Madman Maid In Heaven Make The Music Magic Mill Street Junction Modern Music Suite Music In Dreamland New Mysteries New Precision Night Creatures No Trains To Heaven Orphans Of Babylon Panic In The World Piece Of Mine Possession Quest For The Harvest Of The Stars Rocket Catherdrals Shine (Live Version) Ships In The Night Sister Seagull Sleep That Burns Soundtrack Speed Of The Wind Bill Nelson - Solo A Kind Of Loving A Month Without A Moon A Private View Banal Bloo Blooz Chymepeace (An Ending) Contemplation Decline And Fall Do You Dream In Colour? Dream Ships Set Sail End Of The Seasons Eros Arriving Flaming Desire Flesh The Golden Days Of Radio House Of Sand Kid With Cowboy Tie Lacuna The Lamp Of Invisible Light Living In My Limousine Love's A Way Mr. Magnetism Himself My Electrical Empire Northern Dreamer November Fires The Ocean, The Night And The Big, Big Wheel The October Man October Sky Ordinary Idiots The Passion Photograph (A Beginning) The Raindrop Collector Rejoice Sad Feelings See It Through The Weather Song White Sound Stage Whispers Superenigmatix Surreal Estate Swansong Third Floor Heaven Twilight Capers

Fables And Dreamsongs Bill Nelson album - 26 November 2010 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) A Window Open Onto Eden 02) Wireless World 03) Machines Of Loving Grace 04) Indoor Astronomy (Bella Luna) 05) The Shining Staircase 06) My Wonder Book Of Wings And Sails 07) Beautiful Diamonds Are Falling From The Clouds 08) Stranger Flowers Now Than Ever 09) Way Back When 10) The Drawing Room 11) Pondering The Mystery 12) Moon Gold Palladium ALBUM NOTES: Fables and Dreamsongs (A Golden Book of Experimental Ballads) features a mix of vocal and instrumental tracks. It was released on the Sonoluxe label in a single print run of 1000 copies. The album had begun life with a working title of Moon Gold Palladium , but Nelson revised his plans in the summer of 2010. The album was initially made available on pre-release on the same day as Nelsonica ‘10 before going on general sale 5 days later through SOS. Fables And Dreamsongs sold out in September 2019. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "An album for thinkers, dreamers and poets, though not one that surrenders much to the mainstream." _____ "Fables and Dreamsongs was inspired, in part, from the 'Golden Wonder Books' that my mother owned as a child, and from which she read to me when I was a little boy. These thick, beautifully illustrated compendiums contained classic fables and stories by Britains best authors and artists. Looking at them now, what strikes me is how high the standard of writing was. The vocabulary used, (though they were children's stories), was so much more sophisticated than our modern day approach to children's literature. I suspect that many of these tales would prove difficult for contemporary adults to grasp, let alone children. There certainly was no 'talking down' involved. Back when these books were published, in the 1920s and '30s, the elegance, descriptive and emotive properties of the English language magically connected with children, even at an early age. (Well, they certainly did with me, thanks to my mother reading to me from these books when I was still an infant.) "So, whilst Fables and Dreamsongs is a book of experimental ballads, it is also firmly rooted in the feelings I had when I sat by my mother's side as an infant, as she read to me from these wonderful collections of classic children's literature." _____ "Two of the pieces, "Machines of Loving Grace" and "Stranger Flowers Now Than Ever" were actually premiered live as part of the 'Orchestra Futura' set at Nelsonica '09 . The versions on Fables and Dreamsongs are solo studio versions. "The Drawing Room" was first performed as part of my solo live set at Nelsonica '09 . Again, this is a studio version of the piece. None of the other tracks have been heard outside of my studio before." FAN THOUGHTS: BenTucker: "Totally different, unexpected, psychedelic and utterly mind-blowing is my reaction to this album after just a few listens. But really it's too early to comment for me, as this seems like a very complex, sophisticated masterpiece. The first track alone (a quite stunningly wonderful experience) contains enough richness to fill a whole album, but that's only the beginning..." " Fables and Dreamsongs is Be Bop Deluxe on acid. Unmissable." Andre: " Fables and Dreamsongs is definitely a trip. "For madmen only", as was the club found by the Steppenwolf. Complete with weeping werewolves and machines of loving grace. This is some great stuff!" jetboy: "I love this album to bits, the musical equivalent of Halloween orange flickering on the back parlour wall...a f@xxing classic!" Palladium: "A very accessible, beautifully melodic and satisfying record. "Moon Gold Palladium", for instance, could easily be Be Bop Deluxe from an alternative universe where some of the parameters have been tinkered with a little (in a good, weird way)." mthom: "Had a first listen last night and was pretty much blown away, and dare I say "surprised"? This is uniquely different for Bill. Not so much jazzy or bluesy with some beautiful, yet edgy, ambient soundscapes and some down right rockin' drums. Nice mix of vocals here and there. Fantastic sound quality. I seem to recall Bill saying this is a cross between Sailor Bill and Golden Melodies , and that is an apt description (if he didn't say it, then I did!). This is one to play for the friends who need converting. Great stuff!!!" Wasp In Aspic: "This one could just be one of Bill's most special albums. I would place it near the nexus of Sailor Bill , Golden Melodies of Tomorrow , and Non-Stop Mystery Action . It has a winning balance between enchanted instrumental tracks and passages and beautiful romantic songs." BobK: "Must say I am rather taken by Fables . One of those albums which is initially very likable and then after a few more plays starts to really hit the spot. How to describe it? Whilst it has moments that remind me of Sailor Bill and Golden Melodies , it is more pastoral and dreamlike and, in places, rather strange and mysterious... For some reason I keep thinking it could be the perfect soundtrack to accompany you whilst walking round an old stately home. One that is occupied, but you never see the occupants and one that carries many memories...Does that make sense?" tommaso: " Fables and Dreamsongs immediately gripped me. It seems indeed to be a continuation of Sailor Bill and Golden Melodies , but it is perhaps even more introspective and heartfelt. I like the slow tempo of the album, and its musical complexity, with some quite long tracks which nevertheless seem very accessible. "Moon Gold Palladium" is stunning, but it's only the final highlight of what seems to me one of the best Nelson albums of the last few years." felixt1: " Fables and Dreamsongs is a gem of an album, and "Beautiful Diamonds..." is one of my absolute favourite songs, by anyone!" "Completely blew my socks off!" Tourist in Wonderland: "I think, for the want of better words, Bill has really gone to a different level with this one, and for me, it is rapidly shaping to become one of Mr.N's greatest works. I do not use these words lightly, a masterpiece...and I would urge any Bill Nelson fan who hasn't got this one yet, to get a copy...you won't regret it." Albums Menu Future Past

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 William's Study (Diary Of A Hyperdreamer) September 2009 Jan Jul Aug Oct Nov Dec Thursday 24th September 2009 -- 8:20 pm This diary entry begins in almost exactly the same way as the previous entry of 20th August, that is to say with Emiko departing, once again, for Japan. She left very early this morning and will be away for an indefinite length of time, looking after her seriously ill mother in Tokyo. (I'll write in more detail about this latest trip towards the end of today's diary entry.) Emi was away, last time, for two weeks, but, even though I had a long list of Nelsonica preparations to occupy me, her absence felt more like two months. As always, I missed her terribly and found it very hard to fulfill my Nelsonica duties whilst having to deal with various home commitments plus responsibilities to my own mother. For Emi, the situation in Tokyo was very difficult. Her mother came home from hospital where she had become very depressed and insular. It seems that there's little that can be done for her in physical terms but it was hoped that the return to her apartment, coupled with Emi's presence and personal care, would raise her mum's spirits. It did so, noticably, but required constant attention on Emi's part and a daily care routine that hardly allowed Emi to leave her mother's apartment the whole time she was in Japan. Nevertheless, Emi WAS able to briefly return to the U.K, just in time to help with the final period of my convention preparations, taking care of domestic issues whilst I concentrated on the work remaining to be done. This included the selection, assembly and mastering of my live performance backing tracks and the last minute creation of several drawings for the Nelsonica auction along with the custom decoration of an Eastwood 'Ichiban' guitar, (generously donated by Eastwood boss Mike Robinson), for the Grand Prize Draw. I also took time out to arrange some essential guitar repairs with Gordon White at Music Ground in Leeds, the very nice man who does all my guitar set-up work for me: (www.singlecoil.co.uk ) I had Gordon apply his talents to the Gibson 'Black Beauty' Les Paul Custom guitar generously gifted to me by the late Michael Grime and his very kind wife Kate, (I had a new nut and heavier strings fitted and a general set-up). Gordon also worked on my Campbell Nelsonic Transitone signature guitar, (a slight lowering of the action and an intonation adjustment in this case). Two days before Nelsonica I'd spent a busy afternoon in a Leeds rehearsal room with guitar tech Pete Harwood and sound engineer Ian Thorpe, making sure that my full stage equipment set-up was functioning properly whilst reminding myself of its myriad features. Unfortunately, I don't have enough space in my home studio to accomodate this rather complex live performance rig, so it's essential that I hire a room big enough to wire everything up and get to grips with its various pedals and sounds before I give any concerts. As I only perform live once a year these days, an awful lot rides on that brief afternoon of rehearsal. Whilst Emi had been away in Japan, (from 20th August until the 4th September), I'd individually signed 250 special presentation tins that were designed to hold the Nelsonica convention album and various other 'welcome pack' items. (The autographing of these tins took far longer than I'd originally anticipated. In fact it took me several evenings and two permanent marker pens to complete the task!) During this time I also put finishing touches to the two new presentation audio-visual pieces created for the convention, ('Materialisation Phenomena' and 'Welcome To The Dream Transmission Pavilion'), as well as beginning and completing an eight minute long video piece designed to accompany a new 'Orchestra Futura' live performance track titled 'Machines Of Loving Grace.' Along with the above, I also managed to record 12 new backing tracks for the Nelsonica concert. However, I found it impossible to fit them all into the set list as I needed to leave enough space to include several older pieces alongside the newer material. I actually spent a few fraught days assembling draft running orders and changing them around until eventually arriving at a version that came close to satisfying me...but even then, I was forced to leave out several other pieces that I'd hoped to perform. Nevertheless, the final result was a live solo set lasting over 70 minutes and consisting of 14 numbers with a further three tracks on reserve as potential extras, plus seven extended improvisation 'Orchestra Futura' pieces for the separate live trio set. 'Orchestra Futura' musicians Dave Sturt and Theo Travis each contributed their own starting points/backing tracks to add to my own two Futura pieces, so this year we had a full set to present to the audience rather than the brief 'taster' of last year. Another unique feature of this year's convention was a live on-stage interview with legendary record producer John Leckie and myself. John and I co-produced Be Bop Deluxe's recordings from the 'Sunburst Finish' album onwards, plus the Red Noise 'Sound-On-Sound' album and also my 'Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam' solo album. We've kept in touch over the intervening years and I count John amongst my dearest friends, even though his busy schedule and my own crazy work ethic makes it difficult to actually meet up as often as we'd like. Luckily, this year John had a gap in his usually packed diary and contacted me to say that he'd like to come up to Yorkshire to attend Nelsonica. I immediately asked him if he'd be willing to take part in an on-stage interview alongside me and he very kindly accepted. Plans had already been put in place for me to take part in a live interview, (to be conducted by Nelsonica team member Ian Haydock), on the subject of Red Noise's 'Sound-On-Sound' album, but a last minute adjustment switched the theme over to the broader topic of the work that John and I had accomplished together in the past, plus some more general questions about John's extensive post Be Bop Deluxe production career. It was lovely to see John again...we always seem to resume where we left off, no matter how much water passes under the proverbial bridge in between our meetings. I guess we've always had a natural rapport which made the experience of working together a happy and comfortable one. The actual convention was very well attended and enthusiastically received. My two nephews, (my late brother Ian's two sons), came along, as did my mother and my cousin Ian. Guitarist/singer/artist Brendan Croker also was a guest, as was Kate Grime and Michael Grime's sister Sheila and her husband Brian. Kate had travelled from France to attend. Ian Gilby of 'Sound-On-Sound' magazine joined in with his brother Paul to enjoy the day too. My only regret with these things is that I'm so constantly 'on-call' throughout the event that I don't get enough time to properly attend to the needs of my guests. My mind is always whirling around, thinking ahead to the next part of the day's programme, stressing out about one thing or another, racing to get clothes changed between live performance sets, trying to speak to fans who come up to me with compliments or questions, etc, etc. However hard I try to relax and enjoy the day, I always end up worrying that I've not given enough time to everyone as a result of my pre-occupation with the event's performance and presentation duties. Anyway, the live music performances apparently went well, despite some very frustrating on-stage monitor problems encountered by myself during my solo set. Working with pre-recorded backing tracks, plus direct to pa system guitar feeds means, for me, that every single component of my performance exists only in the monitor speakers at my feet. There are no guitar amps, drums, acoustic instruments, etc on stage with me...the entire 'virtual band,' as it were, along with my live guitar playing and vocals, are only audible to myself via those basic on-stage monitors. This always presents problems of one sort or another, particularly as rock band pa monitors do not behave like studio monitor speakers. Bass frequencies and high frequencies tend to become over emphasised whilst the middle frequencies, (where much of the important detail resides), often gets overlooked or simply muddied by the extended low bass drones. Couple this imbalance with a hollow wooden stage that inadvertantly acts as a kind of huge, boomy bass cabinet, plus a hall that throws the front of house sound back at the stage as if from a long reverberant tunnel and you end up with a guitarist struggling to guess exactly where he is in the track. It was very difficult, on Saturday, for me to hear the cues and chord changes essential to finding my way through the music. Unsurprisingly, my playing always suffers because of this problem and so I ended up being a very disheartened bunny indeed. But, judging by the many positive comments I later recieved from the audience, it seems that the front-of-house sound was more than fine. This was, I'm sure, due to the care applied at the mixing desk by my good friend John Spence who was looking after the sound mix in the hall itself. I just wish I could have had something more comfortable to work with on-stage. 'In-ear' monitoring has been suggested as one possible alternative to the problem...but it's an expensive solution and one I'm not sure of. Actually, one of the best live performance experiences I've had was at two Leeds University School Of Music concerts when the on-stage monitoring was handled by a pair of in-house Genelec recording studio speakers, rather than the usual rock n' roll monitors. The sound was clear, detailed and inspiring to play to. My own selfish concerns aside, Nelsonica 09 was a big success and the friendship, warmth and kindness of everyone involved, from the fabulous and talented Nelsonica team, through to the various guests and the fans themselves, made it a wonderful day. I've said it before but these conventions have evolved to the point that they're more like extended family gatherings than fan conventions. I'm very lucky to have found such loyal and enthusiastic support for my music and I'm extremely grateful to everyone involved. But now, only four days since the hustle and bustle and human interaction of Nelsonica, I'm once again alone in the house, typing these words in an empty silence and wondering how long it will be before I see my wife again. Emiko's mother is still very ill but it seems that there is no way to estimate the speed of the disease's progress. Her condition has fluctuated, some days being worse than others but with occassional flashes of respite. We simply don't know what the future holds, other than an inevitably sad conclusion. When Emi returned to England on the 4th September, her mother went back into hospital, but now that Emi is, once again, on her way back to Japan, her mother will come out of hospital so that Emi can take care of her at her mum's Tokyo apartment. There is no social or free health care in Japan, everything has to be paid for and hospital costs are high. Emi's mum has no health insurance, nor enough money to deal with extensive and expensive medical costs, so being cared for at home by her family and friends as long as possible seems like the only practical solution. In any case, Emi's mum has not felt happy in hospital and prefers to be at home with Emi looking after her. And Emi is glad to be able to spend some time caring for her mother at this depressing and painful time. This morning, we were both up at 5 am to get ready for Emi's departure. Last time, she flew from Yeadon airport to Japan, via Amsterdam. As I noted in my previous diary entry, Yeadon (Leeds/Bradford airport) is very convenient for us but we just couldn't get a suitable flight from there this time. The only alternative was for Emi to fly to Tokyo via Helsinki from Manchester airport. And the most comfortable way to get to Manchester airport from here is by train, although the journey takes a while. So I drove Emi to York station at 6 am this morning and put her on the Manchester Airport train. After waving goodbye to her from the platform, I drove back home feeling predictably miserable and lost. Walking into our home, these sad feelings were magnified. It's just not a home without Emiko, only bricks and mortar. Since beginning this diary entry, Emi has called me from Manchester airport to let me know that she'd arrived safely there and checked in at the departure desk for her flight to Finland. Then, just over three hours later, she called again from Helsinki to say that she was awaiting her connecting flight to Tokyo. It is now 3:35 pm, (U.K. time), and Emi will be 15 minutes into her flight from Helsinki to Japan. This leg of the journey will take around 12 hours so she will arrive at Narita airport sometime around 3:20 am tomorrow morning. I've told her that it's o.k. to telephone me at any time, night or day, so I'm hoping to be woken in the early hours by her calling to let me know she's arrived safely. Then she will have to take the more than two hour coach ride from Narita airport into Tokyo itself, then a taxi to her mother's apartment. All told, a frustratingly long and exhausting journey. It is Emiko's 61st birthday next month, (4th of October), and it will be the first time since we've been together as a couple that we will not be able to celebrate her birthday together. I bought her two birthday gifts on Tuesday...one of which she has opened already, the other which I've insisted she pack in her suitcase and not open until October 4th in Tokyo. It's going to be tough, one way or another, because we will be apart for a much longer time than on her previous trip. Emi has an open-ended return ticket and the earliest she can estimate coming back home is the 19th of October. She also has a prestigious flower display commision for the Lord Mayor's Mansion House in November so will need to return to deal with that at some point anyway. But, meanwhile, I must keep my chin up, telephone her every day in Tokyo, take care of our cats, remember to feed myself properly, keep the house clean, help my mother with her still unresolved legal matter, try not to panic or stay awake all night worrying about this and that...and so on. Oh, and maybe make a start on the final preparations for my next two album releases, 'Non-Stop Mystery Action' and 'Picture Post.' There's packaging artwork to come up with for both of these projects, plus running orders need to be finalised and tracks mastered at Fairview studios with John Spence. And maybe, because time passes more quickly when I'm making music, I should also turn my recording equipment on, pick up a guitar and see what loneliness might bring to my solitary musical table. ***** The images accompanying this diary entry are as follows:- 1: An outake from 'The Love That Whirls' photo session. 2: A filtered outake from the 'Do You Dream In Colour' photo session. 3: Bill on stage in the 1980's. 4: Bill passport photo from the '80's with goatee beard. 5: Bill's photography for Nelsonica '09. 6: Bill's old resonator guitar which he painted in the mid 1960's. Top of page

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