Bill Nelson - The Love That Whirls/La Belle Et La Bête

Bill's second solo album was another limited edition double, which like "Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam" came with a strangely brittle and yet spangly instrumental album entitled "La Belle Et La Bête".

We should probably deal with the main album first. "The Love That Whirls" might just have been Nelson's commercial high point - at least, since the almost-there days of Be Bop Deluxe. The thing about Bill is that (just like us), he's just a wee bit too "off" to ever truly appeal to the herd, so even his commercial successes are still a bit too niche.

Just the way we like 'em.

In truth, this is a superb art pop album, brimming with great tunes, melodies, performances and inventiveness. But then that was what we had come to expect. When I was about 16, I mail ordered a brilliant compilation VHS from Cabaret Voltaire's nascent DoubleVision label. Nestled among the Cabs' disturbing ambient washes, the multitudinous American shorts featuring images of Frankenstein's monster intercut with graphic childbirth and the frankly fucking disturbing Renaldo And The Loaf video, was a breathtaking B&W video for Nelson's "Flaming Desire". I promise to you now, that in those pre-internet days and STARVED of decent non-mainstream stimulus (indeed, even ANTI-mainstream thrills), I played this fucking tape till the magnetic particles had all but fallen off. It was his wife in the video. It was scuzzily low tech and low budget, but had a towering ambition which effortlessly negated those obstacles. I was the BEST VIDEO I HAD EVER SEEN.

And then, the album. A sojourn to Earthquake Records one Saturday, returning home with not one, but two albums. Textured sleeve. Inner sleeves. An inner A4 sheet, asking me if I wanted to join the fan club with the promise of quarterly 7" EPs (I did join, the promise was kept faithfully).

"The Love That Whirls" is filled with really, really good pop songs. Much less angular that the "Sound On Sound" and "Quit Dreaming..." albums. Ever current, Nelson was transmogrifying from post-prog innovator, through new wave spikiness, onwards and upwards into the brave new world of cheapening technology and brave-new-world electropop. What an amazing success this album is. His voice and lyrics alone are worth the price of admission.

"La Belle Et La Bête" purported to be a soundtrack album of a staging of (Nelson's hero) Jean Cocteau's 1946 filmed version of Beauty And The Beast by The Yorkshire Actors Company. Revisiting this album, I had convinced myself that this was probably an elaborate ruse, but re-reading the sleeve notes again, I'm thinking that this was probably true. If there is anyone out there who was either involved in this company, or saw one of their performances, I would dearly love to hear from you.

The instrumental album itself is a glorious affair. Many, many short tracks and fragments of delicious fragility combine to make a seamless whole. Ironically, it is here that the angularity of Nelson's earlier work bubbles it's way to the surface. There are bells. This record was one of my earliest encounters with proper ambient, or "Furniture Music", although I definitely had some Eno stuff by the time this (and his previous record) appeared. I was once again thrilled that there was more of this stuff appearing. Although "The Love That Whirls" has been subsequently reissued, this second album never has been, as far as I know. I'm pretty sure that some Orb samples have been sourced from this album. So, you know, we're in pretty good company here.

"What's he been up to since?" I hear you ask. Well, there is a predictably extensive back catalogue of self released stuff available from the the man himself over at his website. There remains a dedicated set of fans who support him and the stuff he produces continues to follow his obsessions of a romantic, shiny new future in an endearing and heartwarming way.

What a guy.

Vinyl rips at 320 Kbps with full artwork.

Link Expired.

Bill Nelson - Do You Dream In Colour? 7"

From Bill Nelson's sleevenotes:

"The tracks on this record come from the Spring/Summer 1979 sessions that produced the as yet unreleased "Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam" album. Only Th 'A' side will be included on the album, the remaining tracks being unique to this single."

Do You Dream In Colour
Ideal Homes
Instantly Yours
Atom Man Lover Radium Girl

Link Expired

Bill Nelson - Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam/Sounding The Ritual Echo

After Nelson broke up Be Bop Deluxe in 1978, following their extraordinary techno swan song "Drastic Plastic", he formed Red Noise, a New Wave five-piece that produced one album, "Sound on Sound," which would eventually function as the template for the first two or three XTC albums. "Quit Dreaming," which began life as the second Red Noise album, eventually transformed into Nelson's first full-blown post Be Bop Deluxe solo album, producing a couple of UK (very minor) hit singles ("Banal," "Do You Dream In Colour?") and climbing to number 7 on the British charts. The record sounds as current as it did 25 years ago. "Living in my Limousine" predates Flock of Seagulls (whom Nelson would later produce), "A Kind of Loving" taps into early 80s ska, "Youth of Nation on Fire" and "Life Runs out Like Sand" boast an exotic Asian air, and ""Banal" has the marks of a classic piece of postmodern new wave.

I like this album a lot better than the Red Noise outing, although it lacks the killer double whammy of "Furniture Music" and "Revolt Into Style".

As an album though, it's a much more solid affair, with a heap of great songs which reveal themselves over a couple of listens and still sound fantastically inventive today. I'm pretty much in awe of Bill Nelson and the bravery of his journey from glam guitar hero to post-kraut electronicshe frontman to new wave warrior to solo herky-jerky bedroom tunesmith to ambient pioneer. What a hero.

The initial copies of this album came with Bill's initial proto-clockwork-ambient experiments in the form of an additional album called "Sounding The Ritual Echo". It's wonderful stuff, which I have ripped as a single side one/side two, as it seemed wrong to divide these pieces up into the single tracks they have been listed as. I think that they are definitely best listened to as an entity. As vinyl intended.

Stay tuned for the follow up double album, which again was pioneering in setting the the template for a lot of early Eighties pop.

Vinyl rips at 320 Kbps.

Link Expired