Look at your watch – time for a reboot of classic early 80s Bill Nelson

Release Date: 6th December 2024

Label: Esoteric Recordings / Cherry Red records

Format: 3CD/1 Bluray

The story of Bill Nelson continues, rushing headlong into the Eighties on the wave of the glamour of Seventies Be Bop Deluxe (naturally), Roxy and Bowie and associated pop-tinged Glam rockers, via Red Noise and into solo mode.

The album has quite a backstory. Originally recorded in 1979 as an intended follow up album by his Red Noise project, EMI declined to release the recordings and the material remained unreleased. Four recordings appeared as the Do You Dream in Colour EP on Nelson’s own Cocteau label in 1980 (nice little artefact…) and the following year Bill licensed the original stereo mixes of the album to Mercury Records who issued the album in the Spring of 1981. Remarkably reaching #7 in the UK charts, the commercial success vindicated the Nelson confidence in the material.

Be Bop and Red Noise have been served well by the Cherry Red label and Quit Dreaming… is no exception. This expanded edition boxed set features a newly remastered version of the original album mix, but also includes an additional 53 tracks drawn from new stereo & 5.1 Surround Sound mixes by Stephen W Tayler of all the surviving recording sessions from 1979. There’s a previously unreleased radio session from March 1981, a BBC John Peel session from June 1981 and a collection of rare single tracks from the era. Also included on the Bluray is the rare promotional film of Do You Dream in Colour?

Even playing back from a perfunctory download, the new stereo mix feels a little warmer; less harsh and brittle against the 2024 remaster. For all his guitar god prowess, the role is played down and sees his riffing turn urgent, choppy and angular. The tone is set for the Post Punk excursions epitomised by the likes of Joy Division and a future where the Numans and electronic music pioneers and the New Wave flag bearers Talking Heads, XTC and Television make their own marks. From the New Wavers to the Post Punks and New Romantics, so many more bands exist where the Nelson DNA can be detected as part of the make up.

Quit Dreaming… is of course a lovey nostalgic trip or rediscovery. Maybe even one of discovery, opening some doors as we head through the familiar crossover sound of Banal and he bubbly Byrne-esque living In My Limousine to the slightly demented delivery on Disposable. One can’t help but hear a T Rex jive that provides the groove to Do You Dream In Colour. The brassy Madness ska of Instantly Yours and A Kind Of Loving that’s right at home with the early Eighties zeitgeist and Youth Of Nation On Fire also recalls M’s Pop Musik containing a happy series of jazzy hooks. A never ending series of reminders of the Eighties Pop/Alternative scene in one handy stop.The title track itself is all Gothic carnival waltzer sway and clever wordplay – “people who do things are people who get things done.”

Life Runs Out Like Sand confirms the bleed into ambient worlds and segues neatly into a second disc of singles and sessions that ensures the making of music that doesn’t stand in one place. An extended mix of Banal, Ideal Homes and Instantly Yours sit at one end of the spectrum, balanced by an extension into the bizarreness of Dada Guitare and All My Wives Were Iron.

Extras in sessions – the four Piccadilly Radio tracks are more experimental and in the same ballpark as the Ritual Echo experience. Recorded with brother Ian and recaptured from an off air source, they veer more towards the Ritual echo experimentation. Some see keyboard textures decorated with tasteful guitar lines coupled with sequenced and busy arrangements. While Birds Of Tin isn’t much more than an unexplored rhythmic doodle, Boom Year Ahead is very of-the-era King Crimson. He plays it a little straighter for the four Peel Session tracks, yet with Sleep Cycle and Jazz, you;re able to detect already a shift forward in the stylings. Nothing drastic but the whole set – the main album and associated extras – offer up an obvious and feasible progression where there are joins and dots to be linked up.

Just a word on Sounding The Ritual Echo, the extra bonus LP that appeared with the original album release, packed with ambient experimentation. A different kettle of fish entirely and not included ensuring we’ll have to treasure our original 2LP the original release. Nelson explains how “Sounding The Ritual Echo was recorded in the privacy of my own home on broken or faulty tape machines and speakers, each track possessing its own technological deformity. For this I offer no apology as the music owes its existence to a very personal and selfish obsession.”

The set has an illustrated 68-page book with a Mark Powell essay (and reproduced 5 star music press review…) and also includes postcards and a poster. No notes from Bill this time which is a shame as his musings on the BBD sets have been articulate and enlightening, yet doesn’t detract from making this release the definitive statement on one of Bill Nelson’s great works. A set that represents Bill’s ongoing quest of “chasing sound” – a phrase borrowed from Les Paul but one that sums up his raison d’etre, not only in 1981 but one which which runs a vein through his legacy.

Here’s the title track:

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