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Panic in the World Be Bop Deluxe single - 9 January 1978 Singles Menu Future Past TRACKS: A) Panic In The World B) Blue As A Jewel ORIGINALLY: A) Edited version of the Drastic Plastic album cut. B) Non-album cut stemming from the Drastic Plastic sessions. NOTES: Panic in the World was the ninth Be Bop Deluxe single issued during the band's existence. The single came in a generic record company sleeve. UK Promo copies exist with the words Demo Record Not For Sale and a large 'A' printed on the label. In North America Mono/Stereo promo copies were pressed (separately in US and Canada) to encourage airplay on both AM and FM radio. PAST RELEASES: Both tracks would be included on the Singles As and Bs compilation (1981), and "Panic in the World" would find its way onto the Bill Nelson's Be Bop Deluxe 7" EP included in the Permanent Flame Box Set (1982) and on the re-promoted stand-alone 12" EP on Cocteau in September 1983, with an extra track "Jean Cocteau". "Blue as A Jewel" would first re-appear on the Best of and the Rest of Be Bop Deluxe double album issued later in 1978, before being added as a bonus track to the Modern Music album when it was issued on CD in 1991. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: The single is long deleted, but both tracks can be found on the Cherry Red/Esoteric Recordings reissue of Drastic Plastic (2021) - both in physical form and as a digital download. Singles Menu Future Past

Feels Like Winter Again single - 1982 Fiat Lux Production/Contribution Menu Future Past BILL: Producer Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

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

Return To Tomorrow Bill Nelson album - 29 September 2012 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Piano-Guitar 02) Give A Damn My Dear 03) Walking On Thin Air 04) The Mysterious Bath 05) Madhouse 06) You Freak Me Out 07) Chills For You 08) The Plastic Flower Show 09) Send The Rain 10) Always And Everywhere 11) Feeling Floating Away 12) Lucis 13) Secret Song (Oh, Emiko) 14) She's Got The Power 15) Flowers Within (Version 2) 16) Rehearsal Of Thought 17) Dark Eyes 18) Not As Easy As It Looks 19) Deep December (Bright & Shiny Day) 20) Lazy, Lazy Bones 21) Cowboy Song 22) We Two In Love Forever Dreaming 23) Ripples On A Blue Pool 24) Let's Dance ALBUM NOTES: Return to Tomorrow (These Tapes Rewind: Volume One) is a vocal album, issued in a single print run of 1000 copies on the Discs of Ancient Odeon label. The album was first made available to attendees of Nelsonica 12 , included within the ticket price of that event, before going on general sale 2 days later through S.O.S. The material contained on Return to Tomorrow was compiled in July 2012, and is drawn from Nelson's "PCM-F1 archives", recorded in the period between 1984 and 1995. Fans had received a sample of these archives when they were first raided for the Hip Pocket Jukebox mini album issued a year previously. Further volumes taken from these archives are planned for the future. The album sold out in February 2019. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download in the Dreamsville Store . IF YOU LIKED THIS ALBUM, YOU'LL PROBABLY ENJOY: Hip Pocket Jukebox , Luminous , My Secret Studio , Blue Moons & Laughing Guitars , Practically Wired , Confessions of a Hyperdreamer , Whistling While the World Turns , Noise Candy , The Romance of Sustain BILL'S THOUGHTS: "From the mid '80s and into the early '90s, my home studio ("The Echo Observatory"), used a reel-to-reel analogue tape recorder, initially a 4-track machine, then an 8-track and finally a 16-track. I mixed down the recordings I made on these multitrack recorders via a modest analogue mixing desk onto a very early digital stereo machine, a Sony PCM F1, which used Betamax video tape as its storage medium. Whilst I released several albums recorded this way, there was a huge amount of material left "on the shelf". These were demos, rough sketches, unfinished songs, outlines of ideas for advertising commissions, library music, TV drama soundtracks and various late-night experiments. I chose not to release these recordings as I considered them flawed, either with regard to the technical failings of the mixes themselves or inconsistencies in the performance and execution of the material. For many years I chose not to listen to them or consider the possibility of their release... In 2000, my studio equipment was updated to what was then the latest digital domestic home studio multitrack system. A few years previously, my Sony PCM F1 machine had given up the ghost, so there was no way to retrieve or re-archive the material that had been stored on the old F1Betamax tapes. By this time, the unreleased '80s recordings had become legendary amongst fans, particularly those fans to whom the '80s represented their first introduction to my work. However, although I still had no great desire to release these "lost tapes" I thought that they should be transferred to a more current storage medium for posterity's sake. After some research, a working PCM F1 machine was found and purchased via contributions from fans. My good friend Jon Wallinger volunteered to take on the task of archiving this vast amount of material, copying any unreleased tracks from the PCM machine onto recordable CDs. It was a long and slow process and Jon ended up with a huge number of discs containing hundreds of unreleased recordings. These discs then gathered dust in my current home studio until very recently. It is only now, in 2012, that I've had the curiosity or inclination to listen through this archive of old recordings. I was surprised by what I found. Whilst the flaws mentioned earlier still exist, they do not detract from the imagination and vitality of the music. In fact, they often add to its charm. I've selected 24 of these recordings to present here as the Return to Tomorrow album, Volume One in the "These Tapes Rewind" series. Other volumes will follow...I hope you will enjoy this first glimpse into my private archive." _____ "Let's Dance": "It's my version of the old Chris Montez song, which I loved way back in my teens. I recorded it in my home studio, just for fun, back in the '80s. I didn't have a copy of the original lyrics, so this version has some that I remembered but some that are probably made up on the spot..." FAN THOUGHTS: Holer: "Wow. This may be a collection of home recordings, but it sure sounds like a great 'lost' 90's Bill Nelson album to me. A choice batch of exuberant, quirky pop songs, most of which seem to be about the first blush of new love..." "You sound like you're having the time of your life playing a lot of these cuts and enthusiasm often transcends imperfection, especially when it comes to Rock & Roll." "So many stand-out cuts; this is an instant classic to my ears." Billy Wakefield: "I too detect a joyous feel to the album, and if these are outtakes, give me what's on the studio floor! Not trying to be presumptuous Bill, but whilst I appreciate your incredibly high standards of Sonic excellence, I can also appreciate a rougher, less polished piece of work. In many ways I think it can add a certain quality to a track!" Puzzleoyster: "The PCM Era has taken a lot, if not all of us by very pleasant surprise! Open mouthed agog as how comes most, if not all these songs and sketches found themselves down the back of the Proverbial PCM Settee!!??? and did not get a release, then again, when listened to...the PCM are timeless!" "(Frankly I Don't) Give A Damn My Dear!" is an instant classic...it's an awesome jubilant song and works perfectly." chymepeace: "I am glad that Bill's quality control is high but also allows us a glimpse of what didn't quite make the grade (for him) so we get to appreciate a 'lost' gem like "Piano-Guitar". I hope Bill keeps his single-mindedness and lets us hear what he wants us to hear." Peter Cook: "Like a warm blanket, there are some tracks that send me back quite a few years to My Secret Studio and other albums of that era. At this point in time I am drawn back to "Piano-Guitar" over and over. Reminds me of some of the work Bill did with David Sylvian." WalterDigsTunes: "Everything on here feels like a lost pop gem. It really does get better with every play." "If you dig Luminous , Return to Tomorrow will be a must-have!" Prey: "Good music seldom sounds dated. Even though it contains selections from years past, they still sound fresh. I enjoyed all of it, another fine release." mitchellmichael: "I have been waiting for soooo long to hear these tapes and this release did not disappoint!! Can't wait for more in the series!!!" Albums Menu Future Past

The Last Of The Neon Cynics Bill Nelson album - 21 May 2012 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Riding The Go-Tubes 02) Interstellar Courier 03) Decimal Point For The Thousand Races 04) Jericho's Armband Counsel 05) Cassidy's Electric Campfire Song 06) The Colonel Has An Anti-Decimal Scheme 07) The Blue Taint 08) Mathematical Prairie 09) Do Space Trams Dream Of Fictitious Passengers? ALBUM NOTES: The Last of the Neon Cynics is an instrumental album (with a single vocal track) released on the Sonoluxe label issued in a single print run of 500 copies. The album was a collaboration with illustrator Matt Howarth that was commenced in 2003. At one point it had been hoped that the artwork would be presented in book form with the accompanying CD but manufacturing costs ruled this out. Instead, the album was pressed as an Enhanced-CD, with the Howarth's illustrated story included as s a PDF file, accessed by loading the CD onto a PC. On May 4th, 2012 (Star Wars day!) a taster track "Decimal Point for the Thousand Races" was officially released through Soundcloud with the full album finally available on May 21st, 2012. The limited nature of the release (Nelson's first CD restricted to just 500 copies since Arcadian Salon in 2006) meant that collectors had to be alert to get their hands on a copy. Consequently on June 26th an announcement was made on the Dreamsville forum that the CD was almost sold out, with the last copy being snapped up on July 2nd. A few lucky latecomers though were able to get autographed copies by ordering from Matt Howarth's website in October that year. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "Neon Cynic is a collaboration between myself and respected American comic book artist Matt Howarth. Its full title is The Last of the Neon Cynics , a project I began working on quite a few years ago now, (in 2003 to be exact). "The Last of the Neon Cynics was conceived as a sci-fi comic book/graphic story, about a cosmic cowboy called 'Cassidy' who has a robot guitar as his side-kick. Cassidy travels the multiverse in an inter-dimensional tram that utilises galactic wormholes to get from one place to another. The story takes in his battle with an evil entity called 'The Blue Taint'. "Matt wrote and illustrated the tale, (after we originally discussed the idea, way back when), and I have, over the last seven years, written, performed and recorded the musical soundtrack for it. "This project has taken a very long time to come to fruition, mainly my fault due to my unrelenting, intense work-schedule which has only allowed me to devote time to the Neon Cynic music in between other projects. And as Dreamsville citizens know, there are virtually no 'in-between' times in my schedule at all!" [2010] _____ "Whilst there are only nine tracks on the album, they're all long ones and act as a 'soundtrack' to the sci-fi story contained within the CD, (you'll be able to access this by popping the disc into your computer). All the tracks are instrumental with one exception, a rather novel song written and sung from the central character's point of view. The song also features a kind of robot guitar that can play any style of music, (in the song's case, with touches of Jimi Hendrix and Chet Atkins!)" FAN THOUGHTS: BenTucker: "It has a lot of really incredible guitar, and it's mostly instrumental (just one song with vocals). It's an essential purchase for any aficionado of Bill's guitar music." "The Colonel Has an Anti-Decimal Scheme": "How outrageously great is that track!! Just incredible..." mitchellmichael: Best Bill Nelson release of 2012 Poll: "No puzzle here! For me it wins hands down. Great concept, great art/artist, and great music!!! Download Neon Cynics . Best BN release of 2012!" martin jordan: Best Bill Nelson release of 2012 Poll: "Overall my vote has to go to The Last of the Neon Cynics - I love every track and the guitar playing is incredible!" swampboy: "While I think that all of the albums released this year [2012] are very good to excellent, I still think that The Last of the Neon Cynics was the best release out of the bunch. Tight, concise songs with layers of gorgeous guitar." "The whole CD is a smorgasbord of aural delights." Iron Man No. 28: " The Last of the Neon Cynics is the standout release for me: particularly like hearing the music in sync with reading the comic. Personal favourite track is the coda, "Do Space Trams Dream of Fictitious Passengers", for its incredible sense of yearning and regret for what might have been. When I put it on, it's like I've died and gone to Twangolia Heaven. Transcendentally wonderful. Thanks, Bill." GettingOnTheBeam: "Some very heavy rock oriented instrumentals in this one. This CD is extremely underrated." felixt1: "On "Cassidy's Electric Campfire Song", Bill is channelling - Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck! On the following song, "The Colonel Has An Anti-Decimal Scheme", Bill delivers a bit of a guitar tour de force along similar but different lines to "Machines of Loving Grace"." novemberman: "Mr. Nelson you've done it again - another masterpiece! After one play through, stand out moments are "Interstellar Courier" and "The Colonel Has an Anti-Decimal Scheme". Now I've got to have a look at the book to find out what these tantalising titles are all about." Albums Menu Future Past

Mixed Up Kid Bill Nelson album - 3 December 2021 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this CD Purchase this download TRACKS 01) Aeroplane Mind 02) The Autumn Balloonist 03) A Pond For The Moon 04) Channel Surfing 05) Flowers And Stars 06) Saturn's Groove 07) She Sees Me Sleeping 08) Switchback 09) Maybe It's My Eyes 10) The Enchanted Cathedral 11) She's Got Flower Power 12) Nowhere In Particular 13) Mixed Up Kid 14) Far Beyond The West Of Me 15) This Information Arrives From Dreams 16) Wild And Serene 17) Moon Over Echo Lake 18) A Touch Of Body And Soul 19) Longing For Light ALBUM NOTES: Mixed Up Kid is an album comprising a mixture of song based and instrumental material issued on the Sonoluxe label as a limited edition of 1000 copies. The material was recorded between August and October 2021 immediately on completion of My Private Cosmos . Mixed Up Kid is the fourth Bill Nelson album to be released since he moved to his Cubase recording set-up assembled in 2019. Plans for the album were first announced on the Dreamsville website in a forum post on 8 September 2021 in which Nelson referred to it as a "mystery album" available for download before the appearance of My Private Cosmos . On 27 September 2021 Nelson announced in a further forum post that he had recorded and mixed 12 tracks for the album, now titled Mixed Up Kid , but that he was still deciding on the track listing. However, anyone assuming that the album was finalised were informed to the contrary on 8 October 2021 when Nelson confirmed that a further 3 songs had been completed with another song being worked on. On 23 October 2021 Nelson revealed further developments in this project, the most notable being that it would appear as physical CD release rather than as a download. Nelson also confirmed that he had completed 19 songs for the album but intended that only 18 of these would make the final cut (assuming there was enough space on single CD to fit them all on). In fact, Nelson had mis-numbered his final running order meaning that 19 songs were indeed destined to feature on it. Mixed Up Kid was mastered at Fairview Studios by John Spence on 1 November 2021 with the artwork, prepared by Martin Bostock as usual, already underway. Pre-orders for Mixed Up Kid were announced by Burning Shed on 11 November 2021 with it appearing on 3 December. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "You could think of this album as a kind of 'prequel' or even a sequel to My Private Cosmos (though I'm hoping to release it prior to that massive six disc set.) The Mixed Up Kid title comes partly from the fact that the album is a mix of styles with instrumental and vocal tracks covering a range of genres, from meditative, introspect to jazz funk, pop and rock. It's an interesting listen..." _____ "I headed over to Fairview Studio today to transfer all the tracks to the studio's's computer in readiness for the mastering process under the watchful ear of my buddy John Spence...Listened back to the tracks on Fairview's big monitor speakers which reveal a lot of detail that isn't always available on my home studio system. But, thankfully, the tracks sound pretty good." _____ "I chose the title of this album simply because it is, when all's said and done, an eclectic mix of tracks without adherence to any one particular genre. In that sense it certainly is a 'mixed up' album! On another level, the title harks back to my 1950's childhood when the term 'mixed up kid' was often applied to any child who didn't quite fit the behaviour patterns expected of children back then. I've never thought of myself as a 'mixed up kid', (though others may have done), but my tastes in music are wide and eclectic and I suppose, in that respect, they could be categorised as somewhat mixed up. I've always enjoyed fusing different genres together and I try not to lock music into tightly defined categories. Most of my work has taken that approach and this album is no different. These days, in music at least, there's no need to show your passport at the frontier. So, sit back, listen and enjoy the kaleidoscopic Mixed Up Kid !" Albums Menu Future Past

Powertron Bill Nelson album - 3 May 2024 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this CD TRACKS: 01) Fascinating Noise 02) A River On The Edge Of Time 03) Dreams And Smoke (Flow With The River) 04) The Moon Came In My Window 05) Where's The Wonder? 06) Loose Chippings 07) When I Don't Feel Blue 08) Moments In The Day 09) Fair Winds And Steam Machines 10) Sailing My Boat 11) Laughing Sailors, Raging Seas 12) Drive Shaft Purchase this download ALBUM NOTES: Powertron is an album of predominantly vocal pieces issued on the Sonoluxe label in a limited edition of 1000 copies. The album was commenced immediately after Nelson completed work on The Jewel album when he realised that he then had thirteen albums waiting in the queue for their release. He confirmed plans for "another album" in a Dreamsville forum post dated 3 June 2016. The starting point was the track 'Drive Shaft' which was a left over from the The Jewel sessions. Powertron was later revealed to be the name of this latest project. Powertron features an uninvited guest appearance on the song 'Smoke and Dreams (Flow With the River)' in the shape of Django, the Nelsons' pet cat, who entered the recording room and offered a well-timed 'meow' immortalising himself onto the recording in the process. Nelson himself was unaware of this until he came to mix the track and decided to leave in Django's contribution to the song. Within four weeks Nelson had recorded eleven tracks for the album and announced that he needed to add just one more song to finish it. On 16 July 2016 he confirmed that the album was now complete but that it would be at least four albums down the line in his release schedule out of the 14 albums he then currently had in the can. As it turned out Powertron would continue to be overlooked a number of times in favour of newer recordings and it would take a further 8 years for it to finally appear. The album was mastered at Fairview Studios by John Spence in February 2024 with artwork compiled by Martin Bostock using images selected and manipulated by Nelson as the album approached release. Pre-orders for Powertron were announced by Burning Shed on April 5th with a release date scheduled for 3rd May. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase here in the Dreamsville Store. BILL'S THOUGHTS: "I've embarked on another album using a track abandoned from The Jewel as its starting point. I thought this track, titled 'Drive Shaft' was a bit too rock for The Jewel , so I've decided to follow on from it with a second track titled 'Last Night The Moon Came In My Window', a vocal track with a strong foundation in straight-ahead rock. I'll see how this album develops over the coming weeks and try to keep it on its rock music course as much as possible." _____ "Just finished the mix of 'Smoke And Dreams (Flow With The River)' for the Powertron album and realised that there's a moment in the middle of the song where my cat Django must have entered the studio whilst I was singing and recording the vocal with my headphones on...he 'meows' once, (and quite clearly.) I didn't notice this whilst I was singing but it showed up in the mix. In fact, when I was mixing and the recorded sound of the cat happened, I thought he had actually entered the room but, when I looked around, he was nowhere to be seen! It was only when I repeatedly ran the mix past that point that I realised it was actually on the recording. I guess I could have muted it out at the appropriate moment but decided to leave it in to immortalise Django...his 'meow' goes really well with the spooky, bluesy nature of the song. You'll have fun, methinks, listening out for this moment in the song when you get to hear it." _____ "The Powertron album is now nearing completion. Just one more track required, I think. It's a fairly straight-ahead rock album which should hit the spot for those of you into the more abrasive side of what I do. Not without its lyrical moments though, and a nice step on from Special Metal ." _____ "Powertron was recorded in 2016 but has languished in my archives, unreleased until now, some eight years later. Its genesis came whilst recording tracks for The Jewel album. Amongst these was a track titled 'Drive Shaft' which I considered too brash for The Jewel , but too good to abandon. I decided to create a suitable album to house 'Drive Shaft' and Powertron was the result. It's an album of left-field rock songs, mainly vocal but layered with loud and edgy guitars. It will appeal to those who enjoy the wilder side of my work." Albums Menu Future Past

Das Kabinett Bill Nelson album - 25 November 1981 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this reissue TRACKS: 01) The Asylum 02) Waltz 03) The Fairground 04) Doctor Caligari 05) Cesare The Sonambulist 06) Murder 07) The Funeral 08) The Sonambulist And The Children 09) Caligari Disciplines Cesare 10) Caligari Feeds Cesare 11) Caligari Opens The Cabinet 12) Jane Discovers Cesare 13) The Attempted Murder Of Jane 14) The Dream Dance Of Jane And The Sonambulist 15) Escape Over The Rooftops 16) The Unmasking 17) The Shot 18) The Cabinet Closes ALBUM NOTES: Das Kabinett (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) is an instrumental album recorded at The Echo Observatory. The music was composed for a theatre production of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, staged by The Yorkshire Actors Company. Das Kabinett was the first full length album to be issued on Cocteau in November 1981. The album sleeve displayed the title as "Das Kabinet", whereas the label had the correct spelling. PAST RELEASES: Das Kabinett was reissued on vinyl as a double album with La Belle et la Bête (Cocteau, 1985), sporting new artwork. It was given its first and only US release on CD (Enigma, 1989) as two albums on one disc (again with La Belle et la Bête ). Das Kabinett was reissued by Esoteric/Cocteau Discs in December 2017 as part of a 3-CD set of Bill's early soundtrack work, entitled Dreamy Screens . CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Das Kabinett will be made available as a digital download at some point in the near future. BILL'S THOUGHTS: "In 1919, German film director Robert Weine made what was to become one of the classics of the silent cinema, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari. Using stark, expressionistic sets and highly stylised acting techniques, Weine created a nightmare world with insanity and murder at its core. "Some sixty-two years later, early in 1981, I was approached by The Yorkshire Actors Company, to provide a musical score for a modern adaptation of the Caligari story. The Company's director, Andy Winters, wanted to preserve the stylised, expressionistic gestures of the film whilst introducing elements of the mime and even dance. The production would rely heavily on the performers acting techniques as very few stage settings or effects were to be employed. Although this was not the first play I had been involved in musically (I provided an electronic score for a production of Ibsen's "Peer Gynt" in 1966), I found the whole idea extremely challenging and set to work taking notes and timings during the play's early rehearsals. "The story starts and ends in an asylum presided over by Dr. Caligari. The action in between involves, amongst other things, a fairground, a caravan, a prison, and the crooked streets and rooftops of a small medieval town known as Holstenwall. "The music was recorded on the same domestic four-track machine I had previously used to create the Sounding the Ritual Echo album, and as the music had to be delivered to the Yorkshire Actors Company in time for them to complete their final rehearsals, a high degree of self discipline was in order. After several days intense work and a certain amount of last minute editing the soundtrack was complete." FAN THOUGHTS: UrbanCanvas: "What a fantastic atmospheric album this is, I have fond memories of The Yorkshire Players doing excerpts of this during The Invisiblity Exhibition, something that is etched in my mind forever." tommaso: "There is a lot of interesting detail here, and as usual, marvellous and unique sounding synths, creating an appropriately spine-chilling character in places." Mozo: "As the years have passed, I find that if I have Das Kabinett , Trial By Intimacy (The Book of Splendours) and Savage Gestures for Charms Sake playing in the background, I seem to become more creative at anything that I happen to be doing, at the same time I'm listening. So I've come to appreciate the different facets of Bill's creativity all the more. Am I getting older (Brrr), mellowing, maturing?" Albums Menu Future Past

Now Available! find it here

Albion Dream Vortex More Listening Notes Go to Album Listening Notes to accompany the album Albion Dream Vortex by Bill Nelson General introduction: '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.' 1: 'Thought Bubble Number 1.' An opening, an introduction. Shiny, chrome-plated guitars breaking through a grey veil, pushed by percussion...A brief taste of something always just out of reach. 2: 'Behold These Present Days.' Percussion looping back in time to 'After The Satellite Sings.' Voice samples trapped like insects in amber...a simple, brief burst of synthetic energy. Ice skating on the frozen river of time. The present day lost to the past. 3: 'Like A Boat In The Blue.' Aching guitar, the melancholy sound of six philosophical strings underpinning a found-voice sample. Tubular Bells and ocean sound. Sailor Bill laments beneath an ancient lighthouse. 4: 'Sparky And The Spearmint Moon.' Sparky may be perceived as the character featured in 'Sparky's Magic Piano,' and 'Sparky's Magic Echo,' children's records which often played on the BBC's Saturday morning 'Children's Favourites' radio programme in the 1950s and of which I was, as an infant, quite fond...but the music here has no literal reference to that piece, (other than echoes applied to the guitar sound.). Instead, it presents a mock easy listening experience, Liberace and Mantovani smothered beneath a pink blanket of electric guitar candy floss. Short and, in some ways, violently sweet. 5: 'Tomorrow Will Not Be Too Late.' More found voices, introduced by a burst of distressed electronica. A music box from Planet X tumbles helplessly over itself as the track's inexorable mad chant reminds us that 'Tomorrow Will Not Be Too Late.' It will, of course, always be far too late, yet the voice sample presents us with a sort of kitsch and surreal optimism. Ghostly voices at the track's conclusion try to console us but ultimately only serve to underline the disembodied and temporary nature of our brief lives. It's a cheerful tune about a melancholy subject. 6: 'Start Beaming And Get On The Gleam.' An obvious variation on the title of an old early 1980s track of mine. ('Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam.') Actually this piece has no real musical connection with that track but instead heads into more ambient jazz territory...I just liked the play of words on that old title. It opens with a rather melancholy piano section before percussion enters and a chromium guitar excursion kicks in, underpinned by marimba and a bubbling sub-bass pattern. E-bow sections and orchestral counterpoint bring further textures to the piece. Piano mixes in with marimba, Wurlitzer and guitars...the longest track, (so far,) on the album at this point. 7: 'We Who Are Awake Will Not Be Asleep.' This could be seen as a wilder, more intense development of the mood of 'Like A Boat In The Blue,' but it eventually develops into a sort of filtered, distorted, guitar jig to which brief brass riffs are added before the track's fragmented conclusion. It's ecstatic but intoxicated, maybe possessed by some perverse spirit of electrical pagan revelry. 8: 'Thought Bubble Number 2.' Remember those old comic books where a character's inner dialogue would be represented by a graphic 'thought bubble'? Well, these thought bubble tracks are a sort of musical equivalent of my own inner dialogue. This one illuminates the darker, foggier corners of my mind's dusty attic. Uncertain, tremulous, slightly spooky. Guitars and radios mess with each other under a moonlit sky. 9: 'Electrical Adepts Of The Celestial Bed.' Sex, inevitably, enters stage left...erotica embodied in the opening chords of this slinky, trippy neo-jazz fantasy. Title inspired by words found in a book about William Blake's bedroom life. The ghost of Miles Davis gets horny and shiny whilst Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer pianos bring the bitches brew to the party...extended improvisation, ethereal interludes, cosmic star-fields and fuzz bass suggest heaven and earth. A weird old wah-wah guitar enters as if Haight-Ashbury was still, after all these years, the centre of the hipster universe...Dissolve to tides of static, moog pitch wheel aberrations...Miles returns as a synthetic ectoplasmic spirit...now is the time to drop the body and transform to radio waves. 10: 'The Mastery Of The Thing.' More found voices...a quiet, reverse collage of guitars underpinned by trippy percussion..."Higher and higher" the voice urges us...Guitars alternate between forward and reverse gears, chromium, liquid, tuned mercury. Strange. 11: 'Albion Dream Vortex.' The absolute heart and soul of the album, the hidden pearl at its centre. This is the track that birthed the entire album. It's one of those neo-classical adventures that I embark on from time to time, poignant and sometimes sad, yet uplifting, bright and optimistic. An embrace, an affirmation...strings, electric piano, acoustic piano, found sounds, music boxes, church bells, ethereal choirs, cellos, oboes, English horns, electronica...a ten minute sixteen second symphony from my heart to yours. 12: 'Thought Bubble Number 3.' Back to guitars. Filtered, delayed, set to sail on some far distant, slow cosmic surf. An ancient 1980s drum machine rattles and claps beneath as if the 21st Century never actually arrived. Dissolves in a pool of shimmering electric piano. Brief...an interlude. 13: 'Long Ago By Moonlit Sea.' Eleven minutes and thirteen seconds of slowly evolving fantasy...a drift, a flow, a hovering, angelic cloud of lights. Persevere...it goes through change after change. Beauty rewards patience...this one swims deep. 14: 'Let Us Melt And Make No Noise.' A fitting conclusion...to both this album and our time as actors employed in the theatre of Planet Earth. A found voice urges us to "Melt and make no noise..." Guitar sounds slide in and out. Buzzy, electro-static percussion enters and soon fades, an electronic ocean of sonic textures, re-tuned radios, distant echoes and close whispers. A kind of conclusion...but far from absolute. More Listening Notes Go to Album

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

Blip! More Listening Notes Go to Album Listening Notes to accompany the album Blip! by Bill Nelson General introduction: Towards the end of 2012 I began work on a series of recordings which were ultimately intended for release as a double album titled 'Grand Auditoria.' The idea behind 'Grand Auditoria' was that it would touch on the diverse musical styles explored throughout my life as a musician. I hoped each track would reflect a different genre from my past, but with a contemporary twist. These were not to be re-arrangements of old songs but brand new compositions. The album would feature rock, pop, jazzy instrumentals, acoustic pieces, neo-classical orchestral compositions, minimalist electronica, ambient and avant- garde experiments, and so on. It would be a way of celebrating the breadth of my music over the years and, hopefully, illuminate the threads that tie it all together. As each track for the project was completed, I set it to one side and immediately began work on the next. I didn't dwell on the end result of each piece, didn't even listen back to it beyond the final mix but eagerly moved on in anticipation of the next track. Gradually, over some months, enough pieces were completed to fill the album's proposed two discs. I called a halt to the recording process and listened through to the accumulated tracks to choose a running order. To my surprise, (and somewhat to my horror,) I realised that what had actually emerged from the months of 'heads down' writing and recording was not at all what I'd originally had in mind. True, there was a certain amount of variety in the material but it appeared to have followed a far more 'pop and rock' direction than I'd originally hoped for. Worryingly, I had no idea why this was the case. I couldn't recall any particular inner or outer reason for it straying into such territory. Somehow, it just turned out that way, seemingly of its own accord. Creating music in such an intensely focused and seamless manner can instigate a sort of trance- state in the mind of the musician or composer. Hours melt into days into weeks into months and life beyond the studio door becomes an intrusion. I often feel as if I'm existing in an intermediary realm between sensible, pragmatic reality and something far more nebulous, otherworldly and strange. No matter how poetic or romantic that particular description may sound, I am not entirely convinced that such a realm is a desirable or healthy place to locate one's life but, worryingly, it seems that I've long ago lost the will or ability to escape. Eventually I had to concede that 'Grand Auditoria' had been weirdly hi-jacked by something just beyond my reach and it became clear to me that this was now quite a different album from my original concept and as such required a new title to suit its altered nature. So... I temporarily put the 'Grand Auditoria' idea to one side for possible future use and decided to re- think the album's title to better embrace the music that had emerged from the months of recording. Almost immediately after making the decision to shift my creative gears the word 'blip' came to mind. It made me think of an unexpected event emerging from an ocean of possibilities, a bubble on the surface of a calm pool, a 'blip on the radar,' a happy surprise, a little explosion of air and light against a dark background. The word seemed to resonate with the way this music had 'popped up' out of the void, and it evoked a sound, an acoustic-organic, but also synthetic-electronic sound. It was this coincidental sound inference which led me to the idea of creating short instrumental pieces to link the main vocal tracks together. This, I realised, would be a similar approach to the abstract guitar instrumentals I'd used to link the songs on the 'Joy Through Amplification' album, though this time I would be working with more whimsical, analogue synth textures. I immediately began to record some brief 'linking' pieces, recording them quickly and resisting the temptation to polish them too vigourously. The intention was that they would be be simple, direct, relaxed...light, concise and, hopefully, fun. Just as with the 'Ampex' interludes on the July 2012 'Joy Through Amplification' album, listeners are free to treat them as an album within an album or, alternatively, a set of 'sonic sorbets' to refresh their ears between main courses. Once these interludes were recorded and set in place within the general running order I then made the decision to release the album as a single disc, rather than as a double, choosing certain tracks for inclusion over others, tracks which I felt offered the listener a more cohesive, developmental journey from the beginning of the album to its conclusion. The tracks which were 'left over' from this process have been gathered together to create a limited edition, hand-signed CDR album, which I am giving as an exclusive bonus to those fans who have supported the 'BLIP!' pre-release launch party by attending the event. This limited edition pressing bears the title 'The Tremulous Doo-Wah-Diddy, (BLIP 2.') It further illuminates the process by which these recordings came about. It also has some more loosely arranged songs with longer improvisational sections. Well, that's the background to the album. Now here is a track by track breakdown: 1: 'BATS AT BEDTIME.' 'Bats At Bedtime' wouldn't have felt out of place on the 'Joy Through Amplification' album. It's perhaps my favourite track on the album, which is why it's right up front. I've incorporated non-musical sounds into my music for many years and this track features the sound of the jack plug on the end of an electric guitar cable being shorted out by tapping it on the edge of a metal table which supports my mixing desk in my home studio. The same sound also works in unison with the bass drum in the first verse of the song. One of the guitars is heavily fuzzed and features a broken, asymmetrical solo with both fuzz and octave divider effects. As well as the bass and drums and layers of guitars, an imaginary, utterly synthetic Indian orchestra enters for the bridge section. The opening lyrics make a surreal, 'wink-wink' reference to 'The Wizard Of Oz,' as follows: "I am the great and powerful Oz, I am the wizard of what once was, I am ecstatic, drunk and giddy, I am the tremulous doo-wah-diddy-wah-diddy..." After an instrumental section the lyrics continue: "I drive a blue car through the stars, in search of miracles and small surprises, boost my mind into bloom of Spring, bumble bees and bats at bedtime..." More Indian orchestra, then a segue into a gentle coda with chiming guitar and ambient choir. 2: 'YOU DO LIKE MUSIC?' (BLIP No 1.) This is the first of the short Blip interlude instrumental tracks. It's based on a found voice sample which speaks the tune's title. Perhaps this piece connects with my 'Captain Future's Psychotronic Circus' album in that it conjures up a whimsical sci-fi carnival atmosphere via its plastic, '60s Farfisa organ and space-age waltz time rhythm. It's patently a track with its tongue set firmly in its cheek, a candy-floss, sugar pink confection, an antique seaside postcard apparition, a steam-driven fantasy written for a parade of pavilion ghosts. 3: 'WHERE YOU IS, IS WHERE YOU ARE.' A combination of layered electric guitars, hard drums, distorted Hammond organ, bell-tone electric pianos, a subliminally pulsing string section and lyrics which suggest that we are only ever in the moment, even though our minds are constantly turning over past events and anticipating future ones. A sample of the lyrics: "I see the moth fly to the flame, I see myself in all but name, sometimes I feel like John Coltrane, like a saxophone in the pouring rain..." The ecstasy and exuberance of the artist versus the banality of the weather. A pair of wah-wah infected, neo-psychedelic guitar solos puncture the chiming backdrop, tubular bells enter later as the lyrics sing cheerfully of "ghosts in your window pane..." 4: 'BELL WEATHER.' (Blip No 2.) The second of the eleven Blip instrumental interludes. The title of this one goes some way towards describing its mood. Glockenspiel, a high pizzicato bass, synthetic strings, a brief, light-filled change of mood. Some things exist only in passing moments. 5: 'YOUR NAME COMPLETES THIS FREQUENCY.' A sort of techno-psychedelic fantasia embracing reversed guitars, fragmentary electronics, artificial strings, hovering synths and a lyric whose chorus states, "It seems to me that recently, your name completes this frequency..." A short, acid inflected pop-trip into luminous realms of the mind. 6: 'A DREAM OF THEE.' (Blip No 3.) Pulsing synths, sitar decorations, retro TR808 percussion, mini-moog squiggles suggesting a Blade Runner-like off-world exotica and a voice sample which anchors the title in a vague, mock-religious, nowhere-land...A chirping bird of an instrumental. Evaporates after only one minute and forty two seconds. 7: 'THE FABULOUS MR FUTURISMO.' Begins with a brief soundscape of abstract noise, leading into an angular piano, radio dial and orchestra riff. The lyrics sing thus: "The Captain's captured his caution horses/kept their treasure in crystal cages...The fabulous Mr Futurismo/waves from his window high in the sky..." A full orchestra joins the piece stating an oblique melodic theme. Elements akin to 'The Alchemical Adventures Of Sailor Bill' album begin to colour the mood before the lyric sing : "Where were you when the snow was falling...where were you when the sun was rising..." Later there is mention of "pie in the sky." (Is that a God shaped pie or a corporate McDonalds one?) The mood shifts to describe a girl with a 'wiggly walk.' Guitars join the orchestral flow as the song winds its way to a rusty needle-static coda, distressed and patinated. But just who is this nebulous Mr Futurismo? A time-travelling philanthropist from some utopian world of Far Tomorrow? A techno-gnostic being from beyond space and time? Or, your next door neighbour who has the secret ability to levitate through the ceiling of his 1930s semi-detached bungalow and hover like an angel under silver suburban stars? Well...only you know the answer... 8: 'SPARKLETTE.' (BLIP No 4.) Another brief instrumental interlude, this one hinting at the textures and moods of the 'Model Village' album, but with a central glockenspiel motif. Also connects with certain tracks from the 'Picture Post' album. The title comes from the name of a vintage soda water syphon company. I do enjoy creating music inspired by the minutiae of memory! 9: 'YOUR SEXY THUNDER.' Another of my personal favourites from this album. Possibly a song about sexual dalliance, or at least flirtation. It begins with a stuttering electric guitar and a brief blast of electronic sound before mutating into a kind of twisted heavy metal riff over an asymmetric, crippled drum pattern. Features wah-wah guitar, a non-linear arrangement and lyrics which state: "I saw your luxury lingerie in a dream inside my head, you were in my most mysterious thoughts, here in my celestial bed...Your sexy thunder, was always under my skin..." Chorus changes to a more major key mood with Blackpool Tower organ overtones. Wailing, ecstatic wah-wah guitar spurts crazily. Mad piano ending. This too could have fitted nicely on the 'Joy Through Amplification' album. 10: 'METEOR BRIDGE.' (Blip No 5.) A mysterious start leads to a rattling percussion loop and a squirmy mini-moog melody followed by a cute, bleeping bridge and more moog style leads lines...brief piano section followed by mock '80s synth horns. A track filled with deliberately cheesy, '80s synth irony. The title is a play on 'Meter Bridge,' the area of a recording studio's mixing desk which houses its VU meters. Is this real or is it Memorex? 11: 'IN A CLOUD OF STARS.' Keyboard intro, joined by pulsing string quartet then french horn, oboe, xylophone and choir, leading to melodic, harmonised vocals. The opening lyrics state: "Restless are the ides of March, the wind that howls beneath God's arch...but here at home by hearth and fire, I fan the flames of heart's desire..." A neo-classical hymn to nostalgic, romanticised domesticity, or something like that. 12: 'BRIGHT AND GLITTERING.' (Blip No 6.) Another brief instrumental interlude. This one has a rather spooky feel with electronic percussion, electric piano, flanged synth and a sampled voice which repeats the phrase "Bright and glittering in the smokeless air..." An airship gliding by, high in golden sunlight. 13: 'WHIRLWIND WINTERS WIND THE CLOCKS OF SPRING.' Floating synths, reggae organ, sub-bass, filtered guitar, hand-bells, mellotron-flutes and lyrics which begin "There's a half moon in the sky, a full moon in her eye, but right now the sun is shining in her garden...Birds are singing in the trees, her skirts are blowing in the breeze, and I'm down on my knees to please my darling..." As John Peel might have said: 'a song in praise of fair weather and sturdy thighs.' 14: 'FLUTTERBYE.' (Blip No 7.) The title is a play on the word 'butterfly,' which infants sometimes charmingly pronounce as 'flutterbye.' This short instrumental evokes the shining flight of a cabbage-white butterfly as it dances, Tinkerbell-like, amongst the flowers of an idealised English country garden. Mini-Moog lines and a delicately arpeggiated keyboard backdrop hark back to my earliest synth recordings on albums such as 'Sounding The Ritual Echo' and 'The Summer Of God's Piano.' 15: 'PAINTING YOUR SKY WITH MARVELLOUS BIRDS.' A gentle, trippy ballad decorated by speeded-up backwards guitars, clockwork percussion, electric piano, floating synths and, on an extended coda, a twisted sample of an orchestra which, with the addition of further guitars, gradually transforms into something a little more sinster. Opening lyrics are "Soft treble sings in amber light and all is well beyond the night..." 16: 'PURE IMAGINATION.' (Blip No 8.) This retro-styled instrumental interlude has an almost cartoon like atmosphere...toytown reggae with a munchkin-like sampled voice. Lead lines are handled by a series of mini-moog tones evoking some of the synth sounds used on Be Bop Deluxe's 'Ships In The Night.' A short burst of musical surrealism. 17: 'NO TWO THOUGHTS.' A strange one, this. Opening lyrics state: "Weird thoughts wind my clockwork brain...and no two thoughts are ever the same..." Sung over a repetitive, filtered choir sample,Wurlitzer piano and electro-bleeps. The chorus shifts gear and becomes pseudo-romantic with smooth synths, chiming guitar and lyrics which sing of 'lantern light.' A love song for shiny robots. The song ends with a short coda which changes the landscape yet again. 18: 'AEOLIAN MAGIC.' (Blip No 9.) The word 'aeolian' comes from the greek god 'Aeolus,' the god of wind in greek myth. An 'Aeolian Harp' is a stringed instrument whose strings produce sound when the wind blows across them. This short keyboard instrumental does not attempt to evoke a wind harp but used a sampled voice which speaks the track's title over a brisk percussion track, electric piano, synths and orchestra. Another blip on the radar. 19: 'DARLING STAR.' Opens with electric guitar, keyboards and e-bow. First verse lyrics sing: "Sunday morning's little swimmers, seek thou swift the sleeping egg..." Reverse guitars and choir lead to the repeated refrain "Holy River...Holy River..." Features guitar solos which change texture and direction throughout and a trippy looped guitar coda. I didn't quite realise until after recording the song that it is probably about the mystical nature of conception and the urge of life's essence towards incarnation and birth. Sometimes interpretation comes after the event of creation. 20: 'DAZZLE.' (Blip No 10.) The title is spoken by a sampled voice over pulsing synth and jigsaw-puzzle toy xylophone patterns on this short instrumental interlude. 21: 'AFTER ALL THESE YEARS.' Another of my favourites on the album and, in some ways, one of the 'straighter' more orthodox tracks. Predominantly guitar driven, this is a philosophical sort of song with lyrics which state: "Man goes to the mountain, the mountain disappears...Man goes to the fountain, with all his hopes and fears...Behind the wizard's curtain, nothing to be found, of this I am quite certain, our clocks are all unwound..." The song contains two nice, contrasting guitar solos and coda with guitars that peal like church bells. 22: 'I DANCED IN A DREAM.' (Blip No 11.) The final instrumental interlude and the last track on the album...A sampled voice states the track's title over a hybrid acoustic guitar/harpsichord pattern whilst a distant choir and curious backwards sounds decorate. Little melodies emerge from synths to dance freely over all. Ends with the words "And everything glowed with a gleam..." Music and Lyrics Copyright Bill Nelson 2013 All Rights Reserved. More Listening Notes Go to Album

Satellite Songs Bill Nelson album - 3 October 2004 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Times Of Our Lives 02) Like Rain (Rust's Dim Lustre) 03) Sphinx 04) Hollywood Still Burning 05) Garden In The Sky 06) Somewhere Else Is Here 07) Infinity Meets The Moment 08) The Rise Of Pandemonium And The Fall Of Kingdom Come 09) The Wind Blows Silver And The Bees Hum Gold 10) Evening Tide 11) Forever Blue Sings The Sky 12) Sweet William's Epiphany ALBUM NOTES: Satellite Songs is a vocal album issued in a single pressing of 1,000 copies on the Sonic Masonic Records label. The album was intended as a band recording using musicians that occasionally had appeared with Nelson, billed as the Lost Satellites. Had it proved financially viable, Nelson had his sights on returning to Fairview Studios for the recording of Satellite Songs . In the event, Nelson had neither the time nor funding to fulfill these plans, and ended up recording the album alone at home. But the band would perform with him that autumn on the Be Bop Deluxe and Beyond tour. Satellite Songs was put on sale at the start of the Be Bop Deluxe and Beyond tour, simultaneously with both Custom Deluxe and Dreamland to Starboard . After the tour had finished, the album was sold exclusively through S.O.S. The album eventually sold out in 2006. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . IF YOU LIKED THIS ALBUM, YOU'LL PROBABLY ENJOY: Orpheus in Ultraland , Fancy Planets , Joy Through Amplification , Special Metal , Blip! , Blip 2 , Fantasmatron , Captain Future's Psychotronic Circus , Electric Atlas , Golden Melodies of Tomorrow , New Northern Dream BILL'S THOUGHTS: "Forever Blue Sings the Sky": "Moody romanticism, a lovely melody and some complex jig-saw puzzle guitar." _____ "Nearer to rock music in style is Satellite Songs . A kind of contemporary take on what Be Bop would possibly have been doing today, had I kept the band together." FAN THOUGHTS: wadcorp: "A stunner of an album. When I discovered Dreamsville & was reconnecting with Bill Nelson after a long absence, this was one of the very first I picked up when I ordered. I was hooked from the first play. Great tunes throughout." james warner: "A companion piece to the Be Bop and Beyond retrospective concert of 2004, this album of vocal tracks seems like Bill's personal reflections on where he had been and where he was then. The songs hint at things remembered and lost, a grudging acceptance of things as they are and hope in the final revelatory track, "Sweet William's Epiphany", a long ethereal journey punctuated by bursts of energy." ModernMusic: "To my ears, I have always thought that Satellite Songs contains many throwbacks to BBD...the extended soloing on the first track, "Times of Our Lives", for example, is one that is very reminiscent of the Live in the Air Age guitar playing. Subtle throwbacks throughout that entire album but refreshingly new!" Panoramicon: "Times of Our Lives": "A quintessential Bill tune, evoking bright, sunny memories of (my) youth in England. If this is nostalgia, I'm all for it. Great chorus (I sing this out loud in the car while driving, much to the chagrin of my daughter in the back). But then, what does he give us? First, a fine melodic solo 'fore the final chorus, and then...oh my, a vista opens up above three simple strummed chords and we get two (two!) beautiful solos. The phrases like poignant, fading memories; red-shifting into the past like those distant galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. I could also mention the terrific swaggering guitar on "Sphinx", the reflective beauty of "Sweet Williams Epiphany"...so many albums, so much wonder...Bless you Bill!" Mozo: "S.S. is one of the best Nelson releases ever! Especially for all the hep cats out there who keep a yearning for the pre-Red Noise era Bill. "Hollywood Still Burning" rocks with the best of any Be-Bop released. And I still say that "Sweet Williams Epiphany" is a condensed version of Bill's career in a nutshell. That's my story and I'm sticking to it." stpetelou: "This is a wonderful collection of music from Bill. Some of the songs sound to me as if they could have been from the late BBD era and Bill plays some fantastic guitar throughout. The song "The Wind Blows Silver and the Bees Hum Gold" is worth the price alone!" tommaso: "Well, for me it HAD the WOW factor! So catchy melodies, beautiful arrangements, and Bill REALLY singing tunes again (this last aspect I really missed on Atom Shop or Whimsy ), just like in the old times. "Time of our lives" must be one of my all-time Bill faves, just as "Evening Tide"." RJR: "BN's most underrated tune? "Sweet William's Epiphany" from Satellite Songs. Superb!!!" "This CD is an absolute goldmine of excellent pieces." aquiresville: "Sweet William's Epiphany": "Gorgeous Nelsonic pastoral guitar progression, with Bill's wonderful sweet-and-high singing, and those wonderful thundercloud Superstar shred-solo breaks, it's a beautiful example of Past-and-Present Bill, all rolled into a nine minute slice of musing (Yes, it even includes some "found voice" Orchestra at the end -- "Every atom, belonging to me."). It's truly one of my Favorite Songs, for the moment. Thank you, Bill!" Parsongs: "One of my favorite "vocal" albums, it's on my player quite often. Not a bad song on it; all hits. "Sweet William's Epiphany" - one of my favorite songs by Bill. I wish it could go on forever. The extended ending is there too." chromiumlad: "I absolutely love Satellite Songs . One that grabbed me instantly and never let go." Alan: "Satellite Songs is a brilliant album all the way through. The music and the vocals are stellar, if I may say." "Definitely a must have. This CD has great lyrics, vocals and instrumentation. If you don't have it yet, buy it soon." Albums Menu Future Past

Castles in Spain single - 1985 The Armoury Show Production/Contribution Menu Future Past BILL: Co-Writer of "Ring Those Bells", a B-side on the 12" single. Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

Nelsonian Navigator - Issue Five - Published March 1997 Back to Top

Acquitted By Mirrors - Issue One - Published early 1982 Back to Top

Secret Club for Members Only Bill Nelson album - 27 October 2007 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Blues For A Broken Time Machine 02) Symphony In Golden Stereo 03) Station Clock In Cloud Of Steam 04) All Hail The Happy Captain 05) Boyhood Shadows 06) I Remember Marvelman 07) Secret Club For Members Only 08) Venus Over Vegas 09) Superhappyeverafter 10) The Futurian 11) Ghost Show 12) Jet Pack Jive 13) That Was A Beautiful Dream, She Said 14) Men In Search Of The Milky Bosom 15) Astron 16) Hey, Bill Diddley! ALBUM NOTES: Secret Club for Members Only is an album mixing vocal and instrumental pieces issued exclusively for Nelsonica ‘07 on the Discs of Ancient Odeon label. Due to the previous convention CD selling out in 11 days, the decision was made to increase the print run of Secret Club to 1000 copies, although this was not declared in advance (maybe to protect interest in the convention). In a genuine attempt to stem the practice of selling the Nelsonica CDs for extortionate prices, the decision was also taken to officially offer copies of Secret Club at 'Buy It Now' prices on eBay over the Nelsonica weekend. This back-fired to a degree, and caused some criticism on the Dreamsville Forum, as it left fans unsure whether to trust the listing. For whatever reason, this approach was never repeated. As soon as Nelsonica was over, the remaining copies of Secret Club for Members Only were sold through SOS, and on 14 January 2011 an announcement was made that the album had completely sold out. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download in the Dreamsville Store . IF YOU LIKED THIS ALBUM, YOU'LL PROBABLY ENJOY: Return to Jazz of Lights , Here Comes Mr Mercury , Arcadian Salon , Fantasmatron , Modern Moods For Mighty Atoms , Clocks & Dials , Astral Motel , Whims y BILL'S THOUGHTS: "I Remember Marvelman": "Weird and Beard are very much tongue in cheek...those who have the requisite background and are as old as me may have a knowing chuckle at the entire song. At least, that was my plan. The song refers to an English comic book hero from the '50's, 'Marvelman', whose everyday persona was a youngster called Mickey Moran. If Mickey shouted the word 'Kimota' a flash of power zapped down from the skies and transformed him into the mighty Marvelman. If you reverse the word 'Kimota' and change the 'k' to 'c' it spells 'Atomic'. (And Mickey's surname only needs a one letter change to transform it into 'Moron'. Don’t know if this is what the character's creator intended though!) The "weird" and "beard" refer to '50's beatniks, as perceived by the popular media of the time. The connection of that with Marvelman is an obscure but personally resonant one and I approached the song in a humorous, pop-art, nouveau-kitsch, bubble-pop spirit of surrealism style. It's meant to raise a smile and the Dali-esque eyebrow of absurdity. OK, so it's an art-student's song. As someone once said, "the art school ball goes on forever". And I'm just an old-school beardy-weirdy art student at heart!" _____ Bill's Listening Suggestion of the Day: "From my cabinet of musical erotica: "Men in Search of the Milky Bosom". (And let's face it gentlemen, old habits die hard...) This one comes from the Secret Club for Members Only album and takes a quiet, improvised, piano-led path over a mid-tempo trip-hoppy beat. For those of you into compiling compatible tracks, this would sit nicely alongside some of the piano-based pieces on the Theatre of Falling Leaves album. Music for a bedroom lit only by scented candles and shining eyes." FAN THOUGHTS: Peter: "My god, Bill...you are simply amazing. What it must be like to have that much unbelievably great music just flowing through your being...you are blessed, dude, blessed. As are we who are lucky enough to be listening. Pity the fools who are missing out on all this musical treasure." Sue: "I love the title track, it has a really different feel to it...dark, brooding and mysterious." Pathdude: “Jet Pack Jive”: “is the highlight of the album (although it’s crammed full of goodness).” emotionalhooligan: "JET PACK JIVE": "..............what a track. Proper old school Nelson." PhilK: "I think of all Bill's albums I have this one has the near perfect mix of vocal and instrumental tracks. Particular favourites for me are: "Station Clock in Cloud of Steam" (my current favourite Bill track, an absolutely beautiful instrumental, perfect for chilling to). "Symphony in Golden Stereo" "Boyhood Shadows" "The Futurian" "All Hail the Happy Captain" "Men in Search of the Milky Bosom" "Hey, Bill Diddley!" In fact I could list the whole album, what other artist has so much high quality material to be able to give an album of this brilliance away to his fans [at Nelsonica ], amazing." major snagg: "This is high class collection of material...songs and melodic instrumentals. This is a fabulous CD. I've just been rediscovering the hidden jems on it. "Symphony in Golden Stereo", "Ghost Show", etc. These are just two that I like, and how different they are from each other. The first is a lush optimistic 'ballad' (?) and the later, an exciting up tempo, 'Rocker'! This is why I continue to be a 'fan' of Bill Nelson." A Kinder Light: "Symphony in Golden Stereo": "is really hitting home...I don't know why I'm surprised after all of this time that you continue to exceed your own high standards, but I have to tell you that these last five years or so have been an absolutely stellar period for those of us that are enjoying it." Merikan1: "I think that this one is highly underrated. A classic Nelsonica CD encompassing many styles and moods." Kalamazoo Kid: "Academically, I can get from "Heavenly Homes" to "Men in Search of the Milky Bosom," but 30 years have gone by between those songs and in our lives. It's the fact that BN has happily discarded his past to pursue his present (and imagine a bunch of futures) that makes the story worth following. I've certainly enjoyed BN's nostalgia for the past, but only because it has been refracted through steadily older and more restless perspectives - and communicated through dramatically different aesthetic approaches. Change is the measure of life. Stasis is the measure of death. And Bill Nelson is alive and well at 60 - which puts him in a class nearly by himself, in any artistic genre at any time in history. 60 is the age of retirement, of coasting, of resting on dusty laurels, of reunion tours, and of being 35 years past your last startling piece of new work - or of being 35 years dead. All hail BN, delighting and pissing people off into his seventh decade." Timbaugh: "My copy of Secret Club arrived yesterday...in the last week I obtained five of Bill's CDs and am yet to be disappointed...Sell your wife and buy the lot..." Albums Menu Future Past

Whimsy Bill Nelson double album - 17 June 2003 Albums Menu Future Past DISC ONE: Whimsy 01) Nostalgia (For The Future) 02) Slumberlite 03) Let Flow The Wine 04) Switch Off That Desert Sunset 05) Magnetism Made Me Do It 06) A Simple Thought Flashes Through My Mind 07) Senor Mysterioso 08) Ocean Full Of Wishes 09) Swept Away 10) Islands In The Sky 11) Always Summer 12) The Fundamental Blues 13) My Favourite Urban Chrome-Green Sky 14) Dizzy In The Head 15) I Looked At The Sea 16) The Girl Who Disappeared Into A Cloud 17) Whimsy 18) So Far 19) The Violins Of Autumn 20) Will Purchase this download DISC TWO: A Garage Full Of Clouds 01) Showtime 02) Dumb Palooka 03) Garage Full Of Clouds 2 04) Organola 05) Perfect Bliss 06) Powder Blue 07) Here We Go 08) When We Were Young 09) Fairyland Before The Fire 10) Cowboy Christmas 11) Struck Dumb By Beauty Again 12) Don't Be A Stranger 13) The Light This Universe Attracts 14) Sing Ye Golden Sunbeams, Sing 15) Superslippy 16) The Fabulous Fountain Of Your Savoir Faire 17) A Star Named Desire 18) Buzz Was Honey 19) Over The Moon 20) Close Your Eyes (The Sleepytown Symphony) Purchase this download ALBUM NOTES: Whimsy /Whimsy Two is a double CD issued on the Fabled Quixote label in a single print run believed to be of 1000 copies. The album was commenced in February 2001, a month after Nelson took delivery of a new digital recording set-up and had become accustomed to the digital sound (and a few operational gremlins that plagued his early use of the equipment). The album was originally planned as a single album to be called A Garage Full of Clouds (before a note of it had been written or recorded), but in the end this became the sub-title of the second volume (Whimsy Two), completed in the same period. By June 2001 a total of 15 tracks had been recorded, at which point Nelson had decided on Whimsy as a title for an interim album, quite separate in style to the original planned A Garage Full of Clouds album. However by the end of January 2002 the number of tracks completed had grown to fill a double album comprising 40 tracks initially recorded for the two separate projects. In March 2002 Nelson announced that the second album, now officially called Whimsy Two (A Garage Full of Clouds) , would be a limited edition companion album to Whimsy , and that both would be handled by Voiceprint. With completed tracks transferred to Nelson's DAT machine, technical problems caused unrepairable damage to a number of masters which reportedly resulted in Nelson having to replace those tracks with new material. At Nelsonica '02 , held on 7 September 2002 at The Duke of Cumberland in North Ferriby, those in attendance were treated to a preview of 18 tracks from Whimsy a full nine months ahead of release. By then the format of the album had been confirmed as a double CD, Nelson having abandoned the idea of restricting Whimsy Two to a few hundred copies. After mastering the album later in September 2002 and getting artwork prepared and ready for the printers early in 2003, Whimsy was finally released in June 2003 in a fold out digi-pack sleeve complete with lyric booklet. With a few copies having been sent out mail order, the fanfare was then muted somewhat when it became clear that the CD labels had been juxtaposed requiring a re-print to be ordered. The album was back on sale in July 2003 ahead of the special 'preview showing' for the Flashlight Dreams and Fleeting Shadows DVD on 14 August 2003, and the 2 day long Nelsonica '03 (once again staged at The Duke of Cumberland in North Ferriby on 19/20 September 2003). Thanks to the marketing power of Voiceprint combined with the CD being a strong seller on the merchandise stalls at various Nelson live shows staged in 2003/2004, Whimsy sold out of its print run within 2 years of going on sale. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Both Whimsy and Whimsy Two: A Garage Full Of Clouds are available to purchase as digital downloads here in the Dreamsville Store . FAN THOUGHTS: A Lad Inane: "Immediately, the artwork intrigued me and lunged me headfirst into Bill's retro-nostalgia world. Likewise, the song titles struck me as incredibly original, intelligent, and rife with imagery. I was hooked...When I got back into my car, I put on the first CD and was immediately taken with the sonic complexities, bubbling charm, and DIY instinct of "Nostalgia (For the Future)." "Whenever I listen to Whimsy , I envision a little boy in 1950's smalltown America sitting before a Christmas tree and playing with a toy train. And then, in my daze, I accidentally drive my car off an embankment." paulnery: " Whimsy is a great album, starting by the wonderful cover!!! I think that just the graphic art already makes the album a "must buy"...but the music is even better." Quinault: "I love Whimsy ! It was one of my personal recommendations to everyone seeking new musical enlightenment." JohnR: Favourite solo album: "For me, this has to be Whimsy , and for very personal reasons. When this came out, it was the first of Bill's albums I had bought for a while. The music was a revelation and I could not stop playing it over and over again." sauropod: " Whimsy is one of my favorite Bill albums and is the album that got me back into his music after an extended hiatus. "Nostalgia for the Future" is absolutely brilliant." Timbaugh: "From the classy sophisticated pop with a twist of "Always Summer", to the infectious riff in "Magnetism Made Me Do It", the album exudes class...The use of spoken word samples is inspired – adds another dimension." Holer: "I think these are some of Bill's sunniest, catchiest tunes yet, and stylistically, there are some really unique numbers ("Let Flow the Wine", "Fundamental Blues", "Dumb Palooka", etc. etc.). Bill is a real chameleon on the guitar here also. Just wanted to say thanks Bill, and give Whimsy a proper shout out as an album that deserves attention. I know Magnetism made you do it!" tomk: " Whimsy never gets "Old" to me. There's so much going on and it's always a new experience to me. I have always admired Bill's Vocals. "Always Summer" is my fav. I find it quite mysterious, haunting, sad and uplifting..." james warner: "A double album of weird and wonderful vocal tracks, lyrically looking back with fondness to more innocent times. Voices from the past are blended with electronic sounds of things to come, while Bill's vocals and guitar exist in both realms at once. This is retro-futurism in musical form." "Slumberlite": "is THE classic track from Whimsy ." alec: "A Simple Thought Flashes Through My Mind": "from the amazing Whimsy is a lovely combination of samples. Love this song, and the way Bill sings "under control" in the very low register." paul.smith: "Powder Blue": "My wife Sam's favourite song has always been this track off Whimsy . It's a great summer song and full of pure pop sensibility. Burnt sienna as rich dark shadows and powder blue as a cloudless sky on those timeless flight days we all remember as children. Very evocative of all those days spent in a semi-rural landscape for both of us at different times at different ages." stormboy: "It's easy enough to recognise the Bill Nelson Spirit of Adventure in all his work. I love all of Bill's work and applaud his commitment to following his creative nose (can I say that? Yes, I think so), and enjoy the results of his audio excavations. I was worried when Bill switched to digital, as I feared for the loss of some of the BN sound, but I needn't have worried... reliable as ever, he proved he can still stand out from the crowd. Bless his cotton socks." Gary Lensman: " Whimsy was my first Bill Nelson purchase just over a month and half ago after a gap of far, far too long. Bought quite a few since then. Major musical addiction now - I've heard there's no known cure this far from Galactic Central for the Nelsonian Rocketeers on board the Lightship Silvertone pulsing towards Andromeda ." Albums 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

Tremulous Antenna retrospective collection - 27 May 2002 Be Bop Deluxe Collections Menu Future Past TRACKS: 01) Life In The Air Age 02) Sister Seagull 03) Third Floor Heaven 04) Blazing Apostles 05) Maid In Heaven 06) Kiss Of Light 07) Adventures In A Yorkshire Landscape 08) Fair Exchange 09) Ships In The Night 10) Modern Music/Dancing In The Moonlight/Honeymoon On Mars/Lost In The Neon World/Modern Music (Reprise) 11) New Precision 12) Superenigmatix 13) Possession 14) Dangerous Stranger 15) Islands Of The Dead 16) Panic In The World NOTES: Tremulous Antenna is a remastered edition of the Radioland CD (1994) which provides a compilation of the band's BBC recordings for In Concert made in 1976 and 1978. Sourced from 3 different shows, each recording was edited when compared to the original broadcast material. The subsequent release of At the BBC 1974-1978 (2013) with the inclusion of the previously omitted tracks makes this CD redundant. Tracks 1-4: Recorded for BBC's 'Radio 1 In Concert' at the Paris Theatre 15.01.76. Producer Jeff Griffin. Tracks 5-10: Recorded for BBC's 'Radio 1 In Concert' at the Hammersmith Odeon 20.10.76. Producer Pete Dauncey. Tracks 11-16: Recorded for BBC's 'Radio 1 In Concert' at Golders Green Hippodrome 19.01.78. Producer Jeff Griffin. PAST RELEASES: Previously released as Radioland (1994). CURRENT AVAILABILITY: This compilation is now out of print. Collections Menu Future Past

Magic Boomerang single - 1990 The Mock Turtles Production/Contribution Menu Future Past BILL: Producer Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

Listening Notes Occasionally, Bill provides 'Listening Notes' to accompany an album Joy Through Amplification Dreamshire Chronicles Blip! Albion Dream Vortex All That I Remember New Northern Dream Songs For Ghosts

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 William's Study (Diary Of A Hyperdreamer) May 2010 Jan Jun Sep Nov Dec Tuesday 25th May 2010 -- 2:00 pm The gaps between diary entries become wider as the complexity of daily life increases. As I've said so often before, finding enough free time to write up this odd little journal is not always easy. My previous entry, dated 5th January, seems an eternity ago. So much has happened since then that it would be impossible for me to record everything in detail here without spending several hours typing. Instead, I'll attempt to fill in the missing pages in as condensed a form as possible. The last few months have certainly been eventful. During a bout of severe winter weather Emiko and I were involved in a car accident up in the hills of West Yorkshire, not far from Emley Moor. We were driving through a fairly remote area of countryside, on a narrow country lane running down a very steep hill, when, despite progressing slowly and carefully, we lost control of the car and slid sideways down the hill and into a grass verge, narrowly missing a tree. A large four wheel drive vehicle then came over the brow of the hill, stopped for a moment then attempted to drive around us but hit the same treacherous section of ice and snow and also lost control, slamming violently into the side of our car. We were lucky in that we were not physically hurt but we were badly shaken up by the event. Our car, however, suffered some quite serious damage which required it to be sent to an accident repair centre for extensive (and expensive) work. It was off the road for several weeks. Luckily, we were fully covered by our insurance and were given a courtesy car until the repairs were complete. The car is now visibly as good as new. A very unpleasant experience however, and not one that Emi and I would care to repeat. Another unpleasant experience was had when I fell ill with a very nasty gastric flu virus. It started with sudden shivering and aching body, then a very high temperature and stomach pains. I was confined to bed for three or four days, feeling absolutely awful, then not out of my dressing gown for a week. A further week passed before things really began to improve and I felt strong enough to venture outside. I always seem to catch some evil bug or other in the period between New Year and Spring. However, the really annoying aspect of this particular illness was that it caused me to miss the Rufus Wainwright concert in Sheffield for which our good friends Steve and Julia had provided us with tickets as a Christmas gift. I had been so looking forward to seeing Rufus and was terribly disappointed at being too ill to attend. A severe and prolonged toothache has also proved debilitating. It's settled down now but is still somewhat uncomfortable,especially when eating. Of course, my phobia regarding all things medical works against me in these situations. I tend to endure the problem until it resolves itself. Although I consider myself a reasonably bright chap, I certainly can be stubborn and stupid sometimes. I've also been spending time with my mother every week, travelling over to Wakefield to take her out for dinner, giving her a hand with supermarket shopping, etc. Also helping her to deal with the conclusion of the litigation process that she was forced to undertake in order to gain a little more security, all as a result of inadequate provision being made for her in her late husband's will. The whole thing proved to be a tough and totally undeserved ordeal for my mother but, after more than two years of legal action and a modest settlement, there are still a couple of loose ends to tie up. Hopefully, these final issues can be resolved as soon as possible and mum can put this unfortunate situation behind her and get on with her life. Another major pre-occupation for me has been the preparation of volume one of my autobiography. I began work on this project several years ago but, due to various other responsibilities, haven't touched the manuscript for quite a while. A recent decision to privately publish volume one in book form has meant that I've had to devote several weeks of my time exclusively to reviving the project. I've adjusted and re-written large chunks of the original text and compiled over seventy photographs from family archives which I'm hoping to include in the book. The work has required intense concentration and long hours each day to pull it together but it's now almost ready for a rough mock up to be produced so that any final layout/cosmetic changes can be made before it goes off to the printers. The book's title is 'Painted From Memory. Volume One: Evocation Of A Radiant Childhood.' It covers the period from my birth to leaving school and tells how I first became bewitched by guitars and my consequent attempts to learn how to play the instrument. I suspect that a publisher would, in the interests of commerce and conciseness, edit the manuscript quite dramatically...but I'm determined to make this privately printed, limited edition version of the book as true to my original concept as possible. It is packed with detailed descriptions of my early life and provides a unique view of the post-war, working class life in which I grew up. I'm hoping that it will have a broader appeal than a 'How I Became Guitar Boy' type of story, (although that aspect is more than adequately taken care of in the text). My hope is to have the book printed and available to fans of my music by November. Which would coincide perfectly with this year's Nelsonica fan convention. Nelsonica 10 is an ongoing and important preoccupation for me, even at this early time of the year. This year celebrates the 10th anniversary of the event and the Nelsonica Team and myself are trying our best to make it a special one for fans. After some deliberation regarding practicalities and dramatically increased production costs we've decided to attempt a complex two-day event to mark the occasion. I've concocted a fun title for the event: 'Captain Future's Psychotronic Circus,' which suits the playful nature of this special anniversary Nelsonica, and also reflects my childhood fascination with circuses and science fiction. So...this year's event will include a three-part live concert on Day One and a number of interesting presentations on Day Two. The live performance, due to its wide-ranging nature, presents me with a challenge in itself, even before the features of the second day are taken into account. I'm planning to put together a solo set of guitar-based instrumental music with video backdrops, followed by a trio-based set as 'Orchestra Futura,' (which will concentrate on improvised music featuring Theo Travis on saxophone, flute and loops and Dave Sturt on bass guitar and lap-top treatments, plus myself on guitars and loops.) Then there will be a third set featuring my 7-piece 'Gentlemen Rocketeers' band playing a selection of music from my past, (but with a subtle hint of the future!) Choosing, preparing and rehearsing such a complex and extensive 'one-off' show will certainly prove time consuming and physically exhausting but will also offer convention attendees a rich and rewarding listening experience. A fully-packed evening of live music and visuals. The second day will feature special presentations that the Nelsonica Team and myself are already in the process of planning. Amongst these presentations will be an exhibition of my guitars. One of the exhibited jewels in this particular collection will be a unique Campbell Nelsonic Transitone guitar that has been hand painted for me by American artist Nicholas Del Drago. Nicholas is a renowned painter of motorbikes, custom cars and guitars. He is also a guitarist in his own right and a friend of guitar super-star Joe Satriani, (for whom he has also painted a guitar). The Nelsonic guitar that Nicholas has painted for me features a wonderfully retro panorama inspired by some pulp 1950's sci-fi illustrations I sent to him just over a year ago. Nicholas has achieved, on this guitar, a fabulous, deep metalflake paint effect that really sparkles and comes to life when lit by strong light. The sides of the guitar feature a 'flip paint' finish that changes hue depending from which angle it is viewed. The instrument is equipped withAlumitone pickups which in themselves are quite different from any of my other guitars' pickups. In short, it's a very special piece and I'm extremely grateful to Nicholas and Dean Campbell for creating such a striking instrument for me. I've already used the guitar on some of my new but as yet unreleased recordings and it sounds just as good as it looks. Recording, of course, is a continual process for me, an almost daily exercise, or, (dare I say it?) a sort of meditation on 'being,' in the Buddhist sense of the word. (Yes, I dare...) There's something both compulsive and revelatory about just 'doing the work'...I suppose, for me, it's the creative process itself that throws the switch that turns on the internal lightbulb, rather than anything to do with what people might perceive as the musical end result. That old cliché about the journey being more important than the arriving fits my experience perfectly because, whilst the finished albums finally find their meaning with the listener, it's the creative act, the private ritual of making, that ultimately illuminates things for me, especially as I compose and record these albums in an extremely solitary fashion, all alone here in my tiny studio. Since my previous diary entry I've released an album of the soundtrack music I created for the documentary film 'American Stamps.' The film was aired on the US television PBS, (Public Broadcasting Service), channel last year. The music has produced a pleasant and colourful album and, judging from comments posted on my website's forum, seems to have charmed those who have heard it. The album is titled 'PICTURE POST' and it's packaging features a set of imaginary stamps depicting some of my own American pop icons such as Orson Welles, Les Paul, John Cage, Duane Eddy and Fred Astaire. As expected though, I'm already deep into recording brand new music for release later in the year. At this point in time, the aim is to gather together the best, or most compatible, pieces into two distinctive albums. One of these albums will become this year's Nelsonica special edition CD. It will, like the convention itself, be titled 'CAPTAIN FUTURE'S PSYCHOTRONIC CIRCUS' and should be loosely, (though not exclusively), themed around that particular concept. The second album is to be titled 'MOON GOLD PALLADIUM' and, if all goes to plan and I don't shift my conceptual gears, be a lush, richly textured, epic but deeply romantic, (in the poetic, painterly sense of the word), album of vocal-based songs. It will also contain a few appropriate instrumental interludes. All of this is ongoing and organically developing. Lots of work done so far but I still feel that I need to continue along these particular mysterious garden paths until I've gathered enough flowers to make a beautiful arrangement. The vase in the window is patiently awaiting (and anticipating), the artist's hand. Thankfully, the sun is out and the Idea Bird is singing. What else? Well...A shiny new computer sits in front of me as I type these words. Yes, finally, I am connected to broadband and am able to access the internet in a far more contemporary and speedy fashion than before. My new iMac takes up less space than my old G4 Mac and things look slightly less crowded in this tiny home studio than previously. I've yet to fully understand the finer points of some of the latest software, but all that will be resolved in time. My previous computer was ten years behind my current software so there's a reasonably steep learning curve to deal with, especially when it comes to things such as Photoshop and Final Cut. But it's really inspiring to suddenly have the opportunity to move my creative work forward with the help of this sleek machine. It's as if I've moved from gas to electricity! And there are changes in our domestic life too: We are currently being assaulted by banging, hammering, drilling and sawing. Our old, rotten, leaky and unhygenic kitchen is in the process of being completely renovated. I'd hung on to our old kitchen for a long time, hoping that I could postpone the radical changes, (and expense), required to drag us into a more clean and contemporary realm. But, suddenly, there seemed no choice but to 'bite the bullet.' Things were falling apart in a bad way and what had once seemed charmingly 'shabby' had become frustratingly useless. Actually, our home desperately requires a variety of renovations, most of which are currently beyond our reach... but the kitchen's many problems are finally in the process of being rectified. The work began with us emptying stuff from the old kitchen cupboards. An astonishing amount of 'stuff' as it happens. It is now occupying the dining room, actually filling the entire space! AND overflowing into the lounge and into the little study, (a room that was already almost impossible to enter due to accumulations of this, that or the other item of 20th Century bric-a-brac.) The physical work of demolishing the old kitchen began last Wednesday and since then we have had no means of cooking, (or washing up). Today the installation of the new kitchen units has begun, though there's much more to be done in that department, including fitting the worktops, sink and various items of hardware. Still, the tiled floor has already been completed and a new 'range-style' oven will be delivered on Thursday. Hopefully, with the exception of re-decorating the walls and ceiling, the new kitchen should be operational by the early part of next week. Emi is very much looking forward to finally having a decent, practical and easier to clean kitchen to work in. She's thrilled about it all and can't wait to see the finished thing. Lots of plaster dust in the air at the moment though, even up here in my studio...A fine layer of it seems to cover every surface. The cleaning up process will involve more than the kitchen and dining room areas by the look of things. Meanwhile, we've been eating out every evening, (but tonight we had fish n' chips from the village chippie). Had dinner with Elle and Elliot at Ceasar's Italian restaurant in town last night. They're busy people and I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. Rehearsing and performing with 'Honeytone Cody' takes up a lot of their time. I'm just as wrapped up in music too, I guess. But they're very talented and I'm extremely proud of them and it's always good for us to spend some time together. This last weekend was more like summer than spring: bright, clear blue skies and hot golden sunshine. As the kitchen company were not working at our house on Saturday and Sunday, Emi and I took the opportunity to get away from all the kitchen debris and distraction for a while. On Saturday afternoon we went to Knaresborough and enjoyed apple pie and ice cream whilst sitting at the edge of the river, watching the little rowing boats drift by beneath the old Victorian railway bridge. A favourite fair weather spot for us. Later, we drove to Harrogate for dinner and ended up at a restaurant called 'William And Victoria.' It was the first time we'd eaten there and it was extremely enjoyable. Sunday we drove to Whitby, 'though the traffic was terrible and it took us far longer than usual. Had lunch at a place called 'Marine' which we hadn't been to before. Very nice it was too, we'll be going back next time we visit Whitby. The weather was beautiful and we sat overlooking the harbour after lunch, just taking in the view. I love visiting that place, even though it's sometimes very busy with tourists. Sadly, one of our favourite Harrogate restaurants has unexpectedly closed down. 'San Martino' is no more, a victim of the economic climate by the look of it. Such a shame. But there are so many places suffering the same fate. 'The Lamb and Lion Inn' in York was another favourite eatery of ours. Several weeks ago now, Emi and I drove into town to have lunch there, only to find the place locked up and in darkness. Gone forever due to the Royal Bank Of Scotland calling time on the business, despite the owners turning things around and getting it into profit after the losses incurred by previous owners. We miss the place very much as it had become a regular haunt of ours. And I still miss 'Borders' bookshop in the centre of town. The building it occupied remains empty and forlorn, the 'Borders' logo remains displayed within its walls but there are only the ghosts of books and the ruins of bookshelves to remind one of the place it once was. As I've probably mentioned elsewhere, 'Borders' opened here several years ago now, with such promise and style, only to slowly deteriorate, its original wide-ranging stock becoming narrower and narrower, less specialist and more predictable. A victim of the bland and mediocre consumerism of the modern marketplace? Or just bad management and exorbitant rents? Actually, the effects of the economic malaise seem to be more acute than ever. And, despite the usual hopes that accompany a general election, all I can see from the results of the recent hung Parliament is an exercise in spin that somehow defines the naivety and the gullibility of much of the public. Throughout the election campaign, the word 'change' was bandied about like a toy balloon at a children's party. And a children's party, I fear, is what we may have ended up with. I hope this uncomfortable coalition will not be as disastrous as it might appear...but I watch the television images of Cameron and his new found Lib-Dem pals sitting side by side and don't know whether to laugh or cry. What should we call such an alliance, other than 'disappointing?' The 'Con-dems' maybe? An arrogant toff with no upper lip and a fake Yorkshireman who resembles The Mekon but doesn't have green skin? Ok, that's rather unfair of me, I know. I'm just having a go, all in fun. Still, that old satirical tv show 'Spitting Image' would have a ball with this lot. Maybe they're very nice people and kind to their grannies, etc...but, despite their best efforts they come across, to me at least, as condescending and not a little devious. (But that's often a trait of the political classes, so nothing new there.) It will be interesting and darkly entertaining to see which way their wind blows though. I'm trying to think of other things I should include in this 'catch-up' of a diary entry but am finding it hard to think at all due to the threateningly loud sound of drilling and sawing coming from the kitchen below me. So, maybe that's enough typing for now. Until next time. ***** The images accompanying this diary are as follows:- 1: A shot of a corner of Bill's studio showing iMac and Rocketship Nelsonic Guitar. 2: Photo of Bill in front of Whitby Harbour, May 22nd 2010. 3: Photo of boats in a corner of Whitby Harbour taken by Bill 22 May 2010. 4: Bill with Rocketship Campbell Nelsonic guitar. May 2010. 5: Close up of Bill's Rocketship Campbell Nelsonic guitar painted by Nicholas Del Drago. 6: Weird creatures lurking in a corner of Bill's studio. Taken by Bill, March 2010. Top of page

The Dreamsville Poetry Experiment Bill Nelson and the Dreamsville Poets download single - 3 December 2007 Singles Menu Future Past TRACKS: 1) The Dreamsville Poetry Experiment NOTES: "The Dreamsville Poetry Experiment" is a spoken word piece that was the combined work of Nelson, who provided the music, and 69 members of the Dreamsville community who each provided a single line of prose. The idea to "create a surrealist 'found' poem" was proposed by Nelson himself on April 2nd, 2007. "I may try to create a spoken word/instrumental piece with the resultant text being spoken over it". "We each provide one line of a poem without reference to anyone else's line...but at a given signal as it were so that every line is posted at the same time in chronological order to be read as a continuous piece". A 2 hour time slot was pre-arranged on April 22nd, 2007, in which Jon Wallinger assembled the lines in the order in which they were received. Work on the music commenced in September 2007, with the intention of recording two versions – one with the lyrics as originally transcribed by Jon Wallinger, and a second version with the lyrics re-sequenced by Nelson to achieve a more cohesive result. In the end, Nelson abandoned the second version, being satisfied enough with the original lyrical order and his accompanying backing track to premier the work at that year's Nelsonica on October 27th, 2007. "The Dreamsville Poetry Experiment" was later made available as a free download via the Dreamsville website. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available as a free digital download on this page, or in the Free Downloads section . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "The idea is to have fun with this but not to spoil it by writing anything purile or stupid...try to say something beautiful, atmospheric, surreal, amazing or mysterious." _____ "Play it straight, don't be ashamed to apply your intelligence or imagination, don't fall into the pub-bore trap of gutter-level humour. Bring something beautiful and strange to the project rather than something predictable or base. Respect your own ability to dream and have the courage to share it with others." Singles Menu Future Past

Burning Rain single - 1987 Crazy House Production/Contribution Menu Future Past BILL: Guitar on the title track. Production/Contribution Menu Future Past

Saturday 19th December 2009 -- 10:00 pm Catch up time yet again: Emiko returned from Tokyo on the evening of the 7th of December as planned. Her ordeal in Japan now over although the emotional and physical exhaustion has clearly taken its toll. She's been extremely tired and, sadly, visibly depressed since attending her mother's funeral...which of course, is only to be expected. I've been trying to lift her spirits on a daily basis but there's only so much I can do. The reality is that she will have to work her way through her bereavement and the inevitable grief in her own time. I'm simply a shoulder to lean on and must try to stay aware of that and not try to force the issue with false bonhomie. There is no way to magic the pain away. I can't heal her hurt, only share it. But, Christmas is rapidly approaching and may well provide distractions or social interactions that might help to soften the impact of her sadness. At least I hope so... For myself, I think I coped reasonably well whilst Emi was away, though I missed her terribly as always. At least, it was only ten days this time and there were no unexpected cat crises. My sixty-first birthday yesterday. The years absolutely fly by now...the actual numbers becoming increasingly unreal, or so it seems to me, a man hardly out of short trousers in some ways. How fleeting are our lives...and how mercifully ignorant most of us are of time's violent, impassive acceleration. And yet...there is still so much to achieve, so many things to explore, such a lot to enjoy and to learn from... Or, as the cliche has it: 'so much to do, so little time.' Is this why the Buddhist teaching of reincarnation holds some sort of cuddly, consoling appeal for me? The possibility of an ongoing story, a kind of infinite apprenticeship before inevitable, blissful enlightenment finally places Buddahood's bright and golden crown on our rusting, befuddled and exhausted minds? Or, (more realistically), is this just one more crock of wishful-thinking born from our mortal inability to deal with the very real possibility of utter nothingness, utter meaninglesness at the end of our lives, no matter how long or brief those lives may be? Well, one part of me, actually the gut-instinct, primal-intuitive part of me, says it's all nonsense, an empty, desperate grabbing at thin, broken, rotten straws. Ego clinging to motes of dust...and dust clinging to an illusion of light, emptiness suspended in a black, bleak nothingness. Maybe the 'here and now' is ALL we ultimately have to cling to, regardless of whether our particular, personal here and now is little more than an illusion. (And, I have to say that 'here and now' seems always to be particular, subjective and personal. At least, according to my experience.) So, yes...Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Orson Welles, as Citizen Kane, gave the dying Kane the word 'Rosebud' to whisper on his terminal bed, as his personal enigma and mantra, a mystery suspended, hovering in air and slowly dissolving like those aforementioned, light-levitated, motes of dust. And who was, (or what was), 'Rosebud?' In Orson's film, it turned out to be a child's sled fixed in a snow-dome-idealised, frozen winter landscape. A metaphorical lifeboat for childhood's innocence and faith. Well, William.I think that's enough melancholy reflection for today. Christmas is coming, though with somewhat less sheer exuberance than previous years. Nevertheless, it presents us with an extra opportunity for warmth and love, something which I'm very much in need of during these cold, cynical, dark days. Yesterday and today, thick, white, lingering snow. Very cold and icy, particularly the isolated lane that leads from our house to the more-oft used road that winds into the village. Tricky conditions for driving and walking. Fabulously seasonal visuals though, a vintage Christmas card come to life. So...to all dear readers of this old Hyperdreamer's diary, I wish you a Very Merry, Joyous and Warm Christmas, and a miraculous, magical, life-enhancing 2010. As Tiny Tim said: "God bless us, every one." Top of page William's Study (Diary Of A Hyperdreamer) December 2009 Jan Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013 Thursday 31st December 2009 -- 6:00 pm New Year's Eve, 2009. Let me see if I can get this entry written and posted before the clock ticks its inevitable tick-tock steps across the border between 2009 and 2010. I'll try to keep it short and to the point. No images, just words. It's cold still. The snow that fell before Christmas only now just gone, but more is promised, apparently. It's been white and icy for a week at least...very dangerous in the backyard, and on the dark lane outside our house. The main roads have not been too bad but it has certainly felt like an old-fashioned winter around these parts. Colder and more bleak than previous years and only lacking in horse-drawn coaches and post-horns. A Dickensian Christmas card come to life. Christmas Day was spent with our good friends, Steve and Julia, who live down the lane. I brought my mother over from Wakefield to spend the day with us and them...and to stay over for boxing day when Elle and Elliot came to visit. Lights twinkling on the tree, Christmas cards suspended from the wooden beams in the living room, electric icicles and neon sparkles hung in the trees in our snow covered garden, candles and incense and the sensation of mellow, melancholy but benevolent ghosts of Christmases past, hovering and humming in the frosty air. Hornby Dublo train sets, Meccano and Dinky Toys glowing in the living room of memory. Magic hour! I was given some nice gifts, for birthday and Christmas, as always: Emiko had bought me an Andy Warhol wristwatch whilst she was in Tokyo. Made by Seiko for the Warhol Museum, it's a little beauty...(just like my lovely Emi!) Lots of books given too, which suits me just fine. My home is like a library. Got the following from Emiko: ''Perfecting Sound Forever - The Story Of Recorded Music' by Greg Milner. 'Orson Welles At Work.' (A thick, lavishly illustrated coffee table book published by Phaidon.) 'The Art Of Osamu Tezuka' by Helen McCarthy.' And from My friend Paul Gilby I received: 'Shop America. Mid Century Storefront Design-1938 to 1950.' And: ''Architecture Of The Air - The Sound And Light Environments Of Christopher Janney.' (Ironically, I also bought the same 'Shop America' book as my Christmas gift to Paul! Well, great minds think alike, etc...) Elliot and Elle bought me: 'John Barry - The Man With The Midas Touch' by Geoff Leonard, Pete Walker and Gareth Bramley. (Nicely illustrated, this one.) My friends Steve and Julia bought me 'This Is The Way To The Moon' (A reproduction of the children's classic by M. Sasek, beautifully illustrated.) And just before Christmas, I treat myself to a book or two: 'Phallic Frenzy, Ken Russell And His Films' by Joseph Lanza. 'All Is Change, The Two-Thousand Year Journey Of Buddhism To The West' by Lawrence Sutin. 'Prophet John Wroe, Virgins, Scandals And Visions' by Edward Green. 'The Barnum Museum' by Steven Millhauser. 'Death On A Branch Line' and 'The Last Train To Scarborough' (Both titles by Andrew Martin, part of his 'Jim Stringer, Steam Detective' series and the latter book signed by the author himself.) Other gifts included a quirky old Russian Nomo 'Cosmic Symbol' camera bought for me from the internet by my youngest daughter Elle, a very stylish neck-tie bought for me by Emiko from Tokyo, a box set of George Formby DVD's, (also from Emiko). A bottle of Chanel 'Egoiste' cologne, (Emiko again), and lots of light-hearted, fun, stocking-fillers. One of the most generous gifts that Emi and I received came from Steve and Julia: two tickets to Rufus Wainwright's upcoming concert at Sheffield City Hall in April of 2010. A totally unexpected treat and VERY much appreciated by both of us. As readers of this diary already know, Emi and myself are big fans of Rufus' work and we're both looking forward to seeing him perform in April. 'Borders' book store closed just before Christmas. (Did I already mention this in an earlier diary entry? Maybe not.) Browsing the York store was almost a daily ritual for me, part of my afternoon escape from the confines of my recording room. It was from Borders that I purchased American magazines that were not easily found in UK stores: 'Guitar Player', ' Vintage Guitar Magazine', ' Downbeat' jazz magazine, the now defuct '20th Century Guitar' magazine and many other imported titles, including the magnificent 'Fretboard Journal' magazine, a publication that only recently appeared on Borders' shelves here in the UK. When Borders first opened in England, it seemed like a breath of fresh air: it featured specialist sections dealing in left-field books, periodicals, CDs and DVDs, items that appealed to those of us who sought out the more unusual, less mainstream aspects of contemporary culture. Borders recognised that there was a need to cater to those whose tastes ranged beyond the populist staples.. Unfortunately, the last two or three years of the store's life has seen an erosion of such provision. The once broad-based CD racks became much diminished, not only in size but also in the quality of their contents. The jazz, folk, country, world music and classical sections all but vanished...then the rock and pop music sections began to dwindle too and have now, along with everything else the store contained, gone forever... The store closed its doors just before Christmas Eve for the very last time, never to re-open again. Another victim of the internet's ruthless undercutting of high street retail store values. I was there at the York store's closing, but walked out just five minutes before the final bell when the last customer left and the doors were locked for the last time. On that final day, Borders offered a 90% discount on previous prices, but the place looked like a jumble sale with books piled up on tables and none of them of any interest to me. Now, I have no real place to browse for my American music magazines and contemporary art periodicals on my daily, routine, stroll around town. W.H.Smith somehow doesn't have the same vibe, (or stock the same titles), nor does Waterstones, although it is now the main bookseller on the high street. A great shame I think. And even more of a shame: the helpful and once enthusiastic staff who, sadly, have been made redundant. Thankfully, York does have several small independent, antiquarian and second hand bookshops. They will, I'm sure, provide me with some unforseen discoveries, not to mention the tactile shopping experience denied to me by the internet retailers. But it's not just Borders that has suffered...so many others businesses are still floundering too, both big and small. The fashion retailer 'Ghost' has just vanished from the city after a closing down clearance sale. Far too many shops, large and small, emptied and abandoned, their leases not taken up. For all of York's boastful tourism, many traders are struggling for economic survival. The much-touted 'recovery' seems to be little more than hot air. And it seems that It may remain so for some time yet. As for music. I can definitely see the negative effect that illegal internet torrent sites and unauthorised downloading is having on the recording industry in general, including my own tiny cottage industry and others in the same modest position as myself. Whilst the internet has provided small volume, specialist artists with a new outlet for our non-mainstream work, it is also clear that it has had a negative effect on our situation. An awful lot of damage has been afflicted on the entire industry too. But, whilst the major artists and record companies are equipped to weather the storm, those of us depending on small-volume sales are gradually being swept away, never to return. We really are at the mercy of consumers and need, more than ever, an audience who value our contribution and recognise that they, as individuals, are an important component of our survival. And of the survival of music that exists beyond the corporate net.Those who buy direct from the artist are not just consumers but, more importantly, patrons and co-conspiritors, fellow collaborators, preservers of ideals. It all seems to be coming down to a choice between mediocrity or marvelousness. Will the future be blatantly banal or benevolently beautiful? And with that thought, I wish all readers of this Hyperdreamer's diary a healthy, peaceful and enlightened 2010. Much love from Bill and Emiko. xxx Top of page

Electric Atlas Bill Nelson album - 16 November 2015 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Atoms And Electrons 02) Tonight Picasso Dreams 03) Drift Of Narcissus 04) The Moment Has Gone 05) Searching For Utopia And Other Shangrilas 06) All Hail The Witching Hour 07) Mutually Enchanted 08) Golden Moments 09) I Dream Of Lightning 10) Alice In The Palace Of Stardust And Pearl 11) High Beam Sensation 12) Bubbles In The Cosmos 13) Mind Is A Harbour From Which Dreams Set Sail 14) Bright Magic ALBUM NOTES: Electric Atlas is a vocal album issued in a one-off print run of 500 copies issued on the Sonoluxe label. With seven songs in the can, Nelson revealed plans for the album (which was then untitled) on the Dreamsville forum in March 2015. By early April the album had a working title of Bright Magic , and was completed in May. The album title was changed to Electric Atlas in August, and was released on 16 November 2015. After just five days of being on sale Electric Atlas was taken off sale with the remaining copies sold through email enquiries. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "It's been a while since I've released a vocal album so I think that needs to be addressed. I have one vocal album in the queue, as mentioned elsewhere in these threads. Its title is Bright Magic , but I've kind of gone off that as an album title. So, I've now decided to re-title it Electric Atlas . It contains the same songs and even has a track titled "Bright Magic" so there's really no change other than the album title itself. "One of the reasons for that change is that Bright Magic suggests similar artwork to that used on Swoons and Levitations, i e: some sort of magical/conjuring image. I don't really feel I want to repeat that, so the title Electric Atlas sends things off in a different visual direction. I'm not sure quite what direction yet but we'll see what turns up." _____ "The meaning of the title of the album, in case anyone is wondering, is a two-fold thing: An atlas, as in a book of maps, which we can use to chart the world and our path through it whilst we inhabit this mortal coil, but brought into a contemporary context with the 'electric', (ie: digital), connotation suggesting something more akin to a sat-nav unit. And 'Atlas', as in the mythological giant, holding the world on his shoulders, as we all must do whilst incarnate, ie: Man as the creature who must carry the weight of the world by the electrical virtue of global communication and shared information." _____ "Well, I know very little about music in the 'traditional' sense, (if there is such a thing). I have no understanding of music theory, am unable to read or write music down, have given up of ever understanding much about it in an academic sense. So, does that put me in the 'non-musician' category I wonder? Well, I guess I'm on the side of non-musicians when it comes down to it. "I believe there is such a thing as 'the talented listener', people who can hear good music and appreciate it fully without having a formal background in music at all. Music is, ultimately, in the soul, not on paper nor in the head...it comes from deep in the heart and travels to other hearts without the need for explanation or mediation. It just is. And those of us capable of recognising this can appreciate and enjoy our music without ever needing to make a single sound of our own." FAN THOUGHTS: Mayor of Dreamsville: "I was sitting in my little home studio, headphones in position, deeply engrossed in Electric Atlas , when my little boy Zac trots in (he's 2 at the end of this month), he saw me with the headphones on and was dying to have a go, so I sat him down and let him listen to the track that was playing ("Mind is a Harbour From Which Dreams Set Sail"). After listening and smiling away for a while, he removed the headphones, looked at me and said, "Nice!" So, there you have it, Electric Atlas has had its first official review and it is NICE. On a personal note - this CD is an absolute gem, right up my street and highly recommended!" Peter: "From the get-go, this one just grabs you and shakes you. It is a well-named album, as it is like a tour through the Bill Nelson world. From snarling rockers, to dreamy soundscapes, Bill's in good form on this one (as always!). "Mind is a Harbour From Which Dreams Set Sail" stands out for me...along with "Drift of Narcissus", though there are a bunch of gems here. Superb, Bill!" Tourist in Wonderland: "Always great to hear a vocal album from Bill and to be honest, I think he strikes a very good balance between instrumental and vocal output, in the fact that there are obviously more instrumental only recordings released, which is fine...but, when a vocal offering does eventually surface, it's a real treat and met with rare anticipation and excitement...it's all good stuff! "Seriously, I think Electric Atlas is right up there with Bill's best recordings...Stereo Star Maps , Alchemical Adventures , Gleaming , Golden Melodies , Return to Jazz of Lights , Theatre of Falling Leaves , to name a few...Yes, I think Electric Atlas can easily sit at the same table as this exalted company!..." fricker: "Wow! Great album Bill, lovely to hear you singing. Full of lots of surprises is this album and I am loving it. Well done especially with your health probs of late, to listen you would never know. Thanks." Dar: "If I had to pick a favorite thing, it would be the uncanny ability to keep pouring out the well-articulated melodies. Guitar tone would be a close second. Along with impeccable groovesmanship, well, we're most of the way to nearly-guaranteed sonic bliss." TheMikeN: "There's no one theme or approach: some songs just rock while others are edgy and rhythmic but with guitar that finds so much room to move and explore that there is time for jazz to glow brightly from the disc. The moods, styles and genres flow in and out of each other because Bill has placed himself in easy reach and total control of all of them. Let's face it, if you are going to record and release new music for 45 years, what you're going to gain is the ability to be completely at ease within any rhythmic, melodic and lyrical structure that feels good at the time you invent it." alec: Bill Nelson Album of the Year?: "I'm tempted to say Electric Atlas at this point because all the luxurious feelings I get listening to "Tonight Picasso Dreams", and for Bill satisfying my Nelson/Foxx collaboration fantasy with the first track, "Atoms and Electrons." Quinault: "It certainly does live up to the glowing comments. I waited in anticipation, not knowing what to expect, and yet when it finally came - it exceeded my expectations! And my Bill music meter is set pretty high!" Merikan1: "Electric Atlas is simply fantastic. It has all of the elements that I love in your music. It's all there in one package... It would be a great introduction to your recent music." Albums Menu Future Past

Kid Flip And The Golden Spacemen Bill Nelson album - 26 April 2017 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) Kid Flip And The Golden Spacemen 02) Atoms Orbit Around The Sun 03) I'm Dancing 04) From Another World 05) The Golden Soul Of You 06) Science Fiction Times 07) Wonder Of The Age 08) Dark Is The Spark 09) The Void Beyond The Line 10) Old Haunts 11) Emptiness Sings (A Lonely Boy) 12) Monster Man 13) Shine Your Light 14) Paradise And Purgatory 15) Shining Through 16) Hello, Hello 17) Golden Spacemen Rock N' Roll ALBUM NOTES: Kid Flip and the Golden Spacemen is a vocal album issued as a digital download only on the Tremelo Boy Records label. Work on the album commenced in mid-November 2016 and was completed in a little over 2 weeks. Nelson first announced the track listing on Dreamsville on 12 March 2017, revealing it to be a 17 track, 71 minute collection. With the mastering session booked for a few days’ time, Nelson remixed and partly re-recorded his vocal for the title track. Mastering of the album took place on 14 March 2017 concurrently with The Awakening of Dr Dream , issued later that month. Kid Flip and the Golden Spacemen was released on April 26th, 2017. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "I've got the creative bee in my bonnet at the moment and am now working on another new album. This one firmly in the rock and vocal camp for all you retrograde types out there. "I've no idea when this one will surface, as I've only just begun to work on it, and there's an absolute treasure trove of music, (of different kinds), already awaiting future release...but it's a fluid situation with albums being made available purely on a whim at the moment... "But, right now, I'm laying down tracks for this new rock/vocal album which seems to have a flavour of 'Be Bop Deluxe' about it. Tentative, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek, its title is Kid Flip And The Golden Spacemen (Tales Of An Imaginary Band)." _____ "Kid Flip is a fairly heavy, rock orientated, vocal album. Those of you who gravitate towards the more noisy rock albums, (particularly with vocals), will find Kid Flip particularly exciting." _____ "Kid Flip And The Golden Spacemen is actually about an imaginary rock band. (I guess a more contemporary version of "Jet Silver And The Dolls Of Venus" though musically nothing like that track...it's much more rock and less pop.) The lyrics go: "Kid Flip And The Golden Spacemen, playing blues in a bar in heaven...Kid Flip And The Golden Spacemen, turn their amps up to number eleven..." " _____ "My idea is to make it sound like an imaginary band, the 'Kid Flip And The Golden Spacemen' of the album's title. I'm picturing them playing in a big hall in some illusory world...I've produced many of the tracks to sound like a band playing live, captured with the raw edge and lo-fi qualities that often accompany live gigs. The tracks surge and pump, throb and punch as if you were hearing the music from the back of a concert hall. It sounds pretty exciting, if a bit raw and slightly punishing." FAN THOUGHTS: andygeorge: "Another little gem from Bill, highlighting his knack of 'knocking out', for want of a better phrase, instant pop.....lovely melodies here, both vocal and instrumental, from the very catchy opener "Kid Flip" to the closing track "Golden Spacemen Rock and Roll"...fantastic guitar! ...and the ones in between like "The Golden Soul of You", "Monster Man" and "I'm Dancing"...instant favourites!..." CoachMatt: "Science Fiction Times", "Dark is the Spark": "are pure gems! And the funk of "Monster Man"...o yes Bill...getting funky! "Shine Your Light" has a wonderful breezy feeling, telling us about the times we live in I believe. And "Golden Spacemen Rock N' Roll", ya gotta love the sentimental beauty this song rings out, and how Bill can undoubtedly make a guitar sing, rip, and explode with joy! I am totally enjoying the tunes through my short lunch period and looking forward to putting the headphones on!" BobK: "Blimey, I ferl like dancing! What a super fun album this is. I think i need to sit down, knees are hurting a bit....." Uncle Sam Humanoid: "I am really liking this one... Awesome album Bill, You're certainly on a roll sir!!!" December Man: "Nice to see (hear) this pop-rock manifestation of Bill(y) (the Kid) surface. First listen after downloading today and loving the vibrations of 6 heavenly strings in the skilled hands of one Mr Nelson!" major snagg: "I'm really enjoying Kid Flip . "Golden Spacemen Rock N' Roll" and "The Golden Soul of You" are firm favourites already." "How lucky we are to have so much great music as a soundtrack to our lives in these troubled times." Albums Menu Future Past

Quiet Bells Bill Nelson album - 9 March 2015 Albums Menu Future Past Purchase this download TRACKS: 01) We Here Who Were There 02) Vapour Grey 03) The Day I Dreamed You Up 04) Shifting Sands 05) Ocean In The Sky 06) I Dream Of Waves 07) Seaglass 08) Sun On Water, Wind In Wire 09) The Fields Beyond 10) Beneath Her Dappled Apple Tree 11) Chiming Shires 12) Boy Chases Butterfly 13) Ghosts Of The Space Age 14) Transcendental Tittycups 15) A Perfect Night - The Dawn Rejoices 16) Theme From Uncanny Valley 17) Quiet Bells 18) In Dreams Awake ALBUM NOTES: Quiet Bells is an instrumental album issued in a one-off print run of 500 copies on the Sonoluxe label. The album was the first to be commenced after Nelson had been diagnosed with a hearing problem, and was deliberately styled to be quiet and discrete. Work on Quiet Bells was commenced in July 2014 and was completed by September 2014. The album was released on 9 March 2015, and like its predecessor, Shining Reflector , sold out in 7 days. CURRENT AVAILABILITY: Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store . BILL'S THOUGHTS: "This album is a semi-ambient guitar instrumental fantasia, situated somewhere in mood between the Rosewood acoustic albums and the more electric Dreamland to Starboard , And We Fell Into A Dream , and Signals From Realms of Light albums. "It is predominantly guitar based but with lots of AxeFX processing and features the prototype of my 'Astroluxe' signature guitar. The album contains 18 tracks and enough musical mysterioso to keep you digging deep for many months. "It is also the first album I've recorded since my uncomfortable and debilitating hearing loss. Working on this album has been a real challenge, difficult and frustrating yet, despite all that, I think it has turned out ok. By the time it has been mastered at Fairview by John Spence, I think you will find that it's more than acceptable! It has a lovely, gentle, ruminative atmosphere which will, I hope, provoke deep thoughts and technicolour dreams." _____ "John Spence, when we mastered this album, said it was 'thoughtful'. I'll agree with that too...it has some deep and dark stuff going on in it somehow. It's one of the more 'soulful' albums of mine, despite the ambient nature of it." _____ "The photograph on the back cover of the album, (with the tree and landscape), was taken by me, only a few yards away from my house. Incidentally, the interior photo's of the Buddha statue, (with Emi's flowers), and the Carp pond, (plus the dragonfly image to the right of it), are my photo's too." FAN THOUGHTS: Palladium: "Completely 'blown away' by this (Quiet Bells ) - although it's not what I'd expected from reading the above comments. Very different in texture and sound from previous 'ambient'-leaning guitar instrumentals. Seems experimental, fresh, new, invigorating - the kinds of things you don't expect from an artist who has recorded a hundred or so albums! How many times have I listened to a new BN album for the first time, and at certain points thought "this is the best thing I've ever heard". I get a lot of that with Quiet Bells - like when I listened to "A Perfect Night - The Dawn Rejoices" first time." "The first thing that struck me about Quiet Bells was its depth and coherence, given some of the reviews and BN's own typically modest comments about it leading up to its release. In other words, I didn't expect it to be the major album I think it is." Parsongs: "What a wonderful album it is. "Bill has applied his ambient sensibilities (think Chance Encounters in the Garden of Lights ) to his best instrumental guitar compositions (a la Romance of Sustain ) to produce a completely new style and mood. "The music is soothing, relaxing, meditative, introspective. I recommend playing it start to finish, then repeat! I must add that the sonic fidelity is incredible; what a great mix! You never cease to amaze us, Bill!" machman767: "I've only been able to listen once but I'm amazed at the quality. Even more astounding is that it's been created whilst suffering the hearing problem, I can only assume that we really are in the presence of a gifted musician, not that there has ever been any doubt. I don't usually "get" these style of CDs but this is something much more deeper, as Bill says, it's got soul." RJR: "It hearkens back to the very awesome Rosewood CDs and meanders through Neptune's Galaxy , Silvertone Fountains , and other non-vocal collections. But, it is unique and stands on its own. I have a hunch that this one is one that will continue to grow as the spring and summer nights become more the norm. I told my wife that this one is a "floater" (please remove the first visions that just came to your mind) in that it creates an atmosphere where it augments the visual surroundings and creates a feeling of inner levitation." Face In The Rain: "Held off posting anything about Quiet Bells to give myself a chance to listen to it a few times, just in case I was wrong. But I'm not. It's my favourite BN album. Simple as that. I think that about each new release but this time I mean it. The sound is gorgeous - plus it's Bill doing what he does best which IMHO is noodling away on an axe. Maybe it's because I'm of a certain age and in increasingly contemplative mood but this album just completely hits the spot." Alan: "This album is absolutely beautiful. Nothing short of sublime. The music on this album is seamless in its ability to entertain. "Thanks so very much Bill, for providing the soundtrack of my dreams for all these years. And, it just gets better all of the time." andygeorge: "When I die and go to Heaven, and I will 'cos I'm a good boy, this is what I expect to be playing...wonderful music Mr Nelson!" Albums Menu Future Past

Sunday 24th July 2005 -- 11:45 pm A long gap between the previous diary entry and this. Far too long. Work demands have been overwhelmingly intense and I've had little time or energy for anything else. Perhaps this is not so unusual considering how many projects I seem to regularly juggle these days... .but I do seem to have bitten off more than I can chew this time. I've been constantly struggling against physical exhaustion and a kind of mental/spiritual malaise, every day being tinted and tainted with a combination of dread, self-loathing and panic. Just too many things dragging my concentration this way and that, a sense of hopelessness gradually overwhelming whatever optimism I've attempted to muster. I've felt as if my work has suffered as a result too, 'though this may be entirely subjective. Whatever, it still feels like too little energy spread too thin. The task taking up most of my time is the continuous writing and recording of my forthcoming album. For reasons not quite clear, many of the pieces of music have turned out to be long and complex. They are mostly heavily layered, orchestrally textured songs with intricate, fussy arrangements. Each song has taken several days to complete, not just in terms of the writing but also in terms of the actual performance and recording. Mixing the finished recordings has proved problematic too, as there is so much going on just beneath the surface of the music. Getting the correct balance between the myriad interwoven components is not exactly a quick and easy job... so many details to consider. I'm still toying with the idea of remixing a couple of songs, though I'll hardly have time for such a luxury if the finished package is to be ready for the autumn release schedule. There's all the artwork/packaging to consider too. If these songs were ever to be performed in a completely live context, (ie: no use of backing tracks), they would require a large group of very broad-minded and eclectic musicians in tandem with a small symphony orchestra to duplicate the recorded effect. As I originally intended to write intimate pieces that would only require three or four musicians to perform the songs live, it's a shock that what eventually came down my cantakerous muse's pipe ended up being so densely layered and epic sounding. I haven't a clue as to why this should be, it's just as mysterious to me as to anyone else. I'm subject to the surreal dictates of my own unconscious and am often as much a victim of its unpredictability, as well as a beneficiary. The songs' lyrical content has been problematic too, reflecting, perhaps, my troubled state of mind. They're not overtly angst-ridden, heart-on-sleeve, chest beaters, but they do seem to suggest a certain world-weariness and resignation. These are confusing, dualistic, personal songs whose shiny veneer maybe hides something deeper and darker. As I so often say these days, maybe it's just a result of my age and the weird times we live in. Not entirely a waste of time, however, as the abandoned tracks have helped direct me towards some of the other pieces that I feel are much more succesful. These 'keeper' tracks are now the spiritual core of the album, which has revealed, or given birth to, a concept of sorts. (Although it is not strictly a 'concept' album in the old school sense of the term.) But... I have to consider the amount of time this music is taking to formulate and complete itself. If I were to continue at the current rate of progress, all my other creative responsibilities would have to be dropped from my agenda. (Not a good idea.) Not sure that I like being gripped quite so viciously by a single piece of work... but this one seems to be a difficult beast to escape from. I have to admit, however, that there is a part of me that says, 'just dump everything else and spend the next six to eight months concentrating exclusively on the new album.' In fact, I was actually on the point of doing this, including cancelling/postponing the autumn tour, when Adrian, at Opium's office in London, suggested a more practical, pragmatic alternative. He pointed out that it wasn't absolutely neccesary for the album to be one of my extra long, 'filled to the brim with tracks' ones. In fact, Adrian said, it might work equally as well as a 'mini-album' or an ep. This would take some of the pressure off and allow me more time to prepare the video material for the tour and also to deal more comfortably with all the other projects I'm currently juggling. (Against the odds.) An obvious solution, staring me in the face I suppose, but one which I'd somehow stupidly missed... but a very good proposal nevertheless. BUT... even if I do decide that it will be a 'mini' album, (in terms of track count), it could still turn out to be 'full length' as most of the individual tracks are unusually long, so much so that the total listening time may add up to being the same as a 'normal' album. Adrian pointed out that it is probably already as long as Anthony and The Johnsons' recent album (which apparently clocks in at approximately 32 minutes or somewhere about that). But, regardless of these thoughts, I still want to push on, to see where the current thematic or conceptual thread leads me. Luckily, the idea of making it a 'mini-album' provides a much needed safety net... At least I now know that I can 'switch off' the project and deal with the rest of my workload when the time comes to do so. A little bit less pressure, though there's still plenty more to deal with. As an explanation for my sense of urgency and panic I'll list the current workload in this diary entry, in a moment or two, BUT before I do, here is the latest information about this 'album in progress' of mine:- The songs I've decided will be on the 'possible inclusions' list are as follows:- 'The Ceremonial Arrival Of The Great Golden Cloud.’ 'Dreams Run Wild On Ghost Train Tracks.’ 'And Then The Rain.' 'The Man Who Haunted Himself.' 'Tin Sings Bones.' 'Duraflame.' All these are vocal pieces. There are also two as yet unfinished and untitled instrumentals to add to this list... The list does not include everything that I've recently recorded, i.e.: abandoned tracks or tracks that have been completed but set aside for other possible projects (as they proved unsuitable for this one). The album is very much a work in progress at this stage, although it now has a reasonably fixed title. What is the title? Well, unless I radically re-think the album, it will be called 'The Alchemical Adventures Of Sailor Bill.' There are deeply personal reasons for this apparently surreal and light-hearted title, which I may explain at some point in the future. Needless to say, it springs from my usual internal pre-occupation with the absurdity and seriousness, beauty and ugliness of our human condition, and mine in particular. So... the cut-off point with this album will be entirely dictated by the deadlines and demands of my other work... Whether 'mini' or otherwise, there WILL be a new album, depite the pressures. And here, by way of example, is the list of the work I'm attempting, as promised above:- 1. Prepare autumn tour set, including the making, choosing, mastering and assembly of performance backing tracks, both old and new. 2. Design tour advertising material, flyers, t-shirts, posters, etc, for above. 3. Shoot and edit new video material to use as back projection on the autumn tour. (An extremely time consuming job, this one.) 4. Prepare various items and performance events for Nelsonica 05 , (to be held in October), including design and preparation of all visual material, tickets, limited edition screen print poster, etc. 5. Create a Nelsonica 05 convention cd, including the selection and mastering of appropriate musical material, and suitable visual content, sleeve design, etc. 6. Create an exclusive music track for Sound On Sound's magazine's 20th anniversary issue. 7. Give a talk to music college students in September. 8. Prepare tracks, both old and new, for the early August guitar Festival performance in Lewes. (And boy, am I behind schedule with this one!) 9. Choose and assemble an appropriate selection of music onto cdr to send to Ronald Nameth with regard to a possible collaboration on the Ginsberg 'Howl For Now' event documentary film. 10. Contribute an article/written Q+A for a book being written about the above event. 11. Transfer to Mackie removable media hard drive and then mix the very early Be Bop Deluxe Decca audition tapes for possible release in autumn. 12. Design packaging for above. 13. Help to oversee the release of major label back catalogue. (Mercury and EMI.) 14. Select appropriate equipment for upcoming live shows, unwire from my studio and repair where required. Then pack and haul downstairs in preparation for transportation to venues. 15. Schedule a full day's rehearsal for autumn tour and ensure that everything is in place that needs to be. 16. Allocate sufficient time at home to allow a personal rehearsal schedule for the tour material so that the main reheasal is freed up to concentrate on technical/equipment/sound mixing matters, rather than musical ones. 17. Complete the writing and recording and mixing of the new album. 18. Decide track running order, book Fairview to master the final album and design packaging art for it. 19. Attend and possibly contribute towards the performance of Ginsberg's 'Howl' poem, annniversary reading. 20. Begin a possible collaboration with John Foxx. 21. Ditto with J. F. and Harold Budd. 22. Ditto with Cipher. (Theo Travis and Dave Sturt.) 23. Try to get back on track with my collaboration with American comic book artist Matt Howarth. 24. Open up further areas of the Dreamsville site, including the long promised 'Museum Of Memory' feature, the 'Academy Of Art' and the 'Guitar Arcade.' But, as I've already said, the priority for me at the moment is to constantly work on the new album. (11 am to 11 pm, with a 45 minute dinner break, every day, with a couple of guilty Sundays off to give Emiko some kind of life other than sitting downstairs watching tv whilst I furrow my brow in the studio.) So... this is the kind of life I lead right now:- obsessive, unhealthy, anti-social, grumpy, angst-ridden, insecure, depressive, stressful, etc. (Oh, poor, poor me, so many guitars to play!) But also, dreamlike, magical, creatively fulfilling, educational, enlightening and priveleged too. Yes... it's that special. I'm just one of those common or garden, pathetic but fabulously lucky tortured artists that you read about in tacky romantic novels... AND I've got the dysfunctional lifestyle, psychological quirks and expanding waistline to prove it. And now on to other, more serious matters:- Terrorist attacks on London. What can I or anyone else say ? The horror, disgust and revulsion that we all feel about these events requires no explanatory comment from me. Nevertheless, I'll say this, if only to release a little of the pressure in my own angry heart:- That people commit such acts of depravity in the name of religion, (whatever religion), is a sickening measure of the ignorance, stupidity, gullibility and downright self-centred, ugly righteousness of those who think of themselves as 'agents of god'. ('God' is, increasingly it seems, a convenient concept for abdicating individual responsibilty for vile criminal acts.) The indoctrinated dupes who carry out these cruel, pathetic and ultimately ineffectual attacks are deluded lost souls, terminally infatuated with the ecstasy of self-immolation, death and glory, holy-martyrdom and all the other banal, historically tested, psychologically potent appeals to the dangerous idiot within us all. These young fools bought the tired old lie of a righteous martyr's paradise... and couldn't see past the illusions weaved by their hate-filled puppet masters. What a tragic world we live in. As always, the innocent suffer the most. And don't get me started on the political issues. There's ignorance on all sides. Enough disgust from me? More than you need... let's move on. Despite my relentless work schedule, I have conspired to take a couple of Sundays off. A visit to Castle Howard and visits to the East and North Yorkshire coast, Reighton Sands, Whitby, Spurn Point. The latter two locations allowed me a chance to paddle like a kid in the ocean, to savour the waves and breath some fresh air, ('though I wish I had more time to do it properly and without guilt). I justified the time away from my studio by taking along my camera and camcorder to capture images that might prove useful for the tour's video projection, or for this very website. Some of those photo's scattered amongst this diary entry... a couple of seaside days to share with you. My trip to Reighton Sands, or 'Reighton Gap' as it was known to my family in the 'fifties, was only the second time I've been there since I was a child. (My earlier diary entries reference this.) On this latest visit, Emi and I ventured down the steep incline, cut into the cliffs, to the beach. It was the first time I'd walked on these sands since I was a very young boy. Nothing much had changed, apart from some coastal erosion, but the view of Flamborough Head from Reighton Sands was just as striking as I remembered, the beach just as sparsely populated. The crumbling ruins of the concrete World War 2 bunkers, almost exactly as they were in the early 'fifties when my family stayed at a bungalow in Reighton Gap, still stand, braving the North Sea winds and guarding the little pools in which I once, all those years ago, sailed my cream and red painted, battery powered, toy boat, 'St. Christopher.' I wrote 'Hello, Sailor Bill' in the sand with my walking cane and Emi took a photo. Emi and I then stood, trousers rolled up, at the edge of the sea, up to our calves in the incoming tide, which was cold and sharp and clear. We'd done the same thing at Spurn Point the previous weekend, (where I'd photographed the patterns made by fishermen's tractors in the sand on the Humber river side of the estuary peninsula). I love this entire stretch of coastline, its variety, its history, and never tire of it. My late father loved it too, as I've probably mentioned before... in fact, he loved the ocean and the coast generally, wherever we roamed as a family back in those simpler times. I still vividly recall standing next to him on cliff tops on the east coast, or on harbour walls in Ilfracoombe in Devon, watching the storm tossed waves. The wilder the seas, the more my father enjoyed observing them. He could be a difficult, sometimes angry and occasionally volatile, violent man, but also generous, kind, thoughtful and soulful. Certainly contradictory. Those moments standing beside him, in awe of the waves, stay stronger in my memory than his darker moods. One of my latest songs directly references my father's love of the sea. In fact, it starts with a simple statement: 'my father loved the sea, summertime, wintertime, anytime... My father longed to be, a sailor on the sea...' It sounds much better in the context of the whole song. (The song is called:- 'The Ceremonial Arrival Of The Great Golden Cloud.') It's over eight minutes long. Weather cool verging on cold today, cloudy and no sun. The recent warm weather vanished for a time, or so it seems. But it's been frustrating to have to stay in my hot, airless studio whilst the sunshine has been transforming the surrounding landscape into an archytypal English pastoral summer scene these last few weeks. It will soon be harvest time though, fields of barley have turned from green to gold already. Leaves turning before we know it too, I suspect. The seasons change so rapidly. I continue to make music and must optimistically return to the work, pushing on regardless. Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months. Time passes and life sings. All photographs by Bill Nelson. Top of page William's Study (Diary Of A Hyperdreamer) July 2005 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Aug Sep Oct Dec 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2013