At the end of March 2011, Bill Nelson and the Gentlemen Rocketeers, along with one hundred plus guests, populated Studio A at Metropolis, West London, for a dynamite concert reminiscent of the Marquee club in its heyday. A blistering fourteen song set from the band, which covers much of Bill’s career to date, was the result. We’re delighted to present that set here on both CD and DVD, together with an interview with Bill and a sublime four track solo set as DVD extras.
This compilation of Nelson's work over a ten-year span follows an earlier Cocteau set, The Two-fold Aspect of Everything, which compiled single releases and oddities. Nelson is amazingly prolific, with many albums to his credit, and a growing list of box sets in various forms…
This is volume one in a series of albums designed to gather together rare and previously unreleased home recordings from the ‘80s onwards under the series title 'THESE TAPES REWIND'. From the mid ‘80s and into the early '90s my home studio, ('The Echo Observatory'), used a reel-to-reel analogue 16-track recorder. I mixed down via an analogue desk onto a very early SONY PCM F1 digital stereo machine. Whilst I released several albums recorded this way, there was a huge amount of material left 'on the shelf’.
Esoteric Recordings announce a new release on their recently launched Cocteau Discs imprint, a limited edition reissue of BILL NELSON’s classic 4 disc ambient boxed set "TRIAL BY INTIMACY (The Book of Splendours)”. The set was originally released on Bill’s Cocteau Records label in October 1984 and comprised recordings made by Bill at his Echo Observatory home studio. Comprising some eighty pieces of music, the set was a fine example of Bill Nelson’s grasp of Ambient music and has subsequently been hailed as a ground-breaking work. Long deleted, the set is made available once more with this newly re-mastered Cocteau Discs edition. The new release fully restores the original elements of the "TRIAL BY INTIMACY” box and is an exact facsimile, reproducing a 32 page book and eight art postcards that featured in the original set.
'The Dreamshire Chronicles' is a double album, written and recorded in a sort of waking trance. I wasn't quite sure, when I began work on the project, what the concept of 'Dreamshire' might mean. Now, with hindsight, it seems to be about a haunted realm filled with beautiful ghosts. It's a place built on memory and fantasy, sometimes brightly lit, sometimes pale and flickering, shadowy. The two discs feature solid arrangements, but with nebulous overtones, big walls of sound that are also fragile and delicately transparent. 'Dreamshire' exists in a time and space somewhere between twilight and dawn.
This album contains the music he was commissioned to write for artist Rob Ward's "Crimsworth" installation. This comes in the form of two lengthy tracks…
Following on from 2011's 'Model Village,' Sonoluxe's Super-Listener Series presents 'Songs Of The Blossom Tree Optimists,' a 15 track, neo-baroque, dream-folk album featuring acoustic guitars, minimalist orchestra and percussion, all topped off with Bill's melodic vocals. The album's lush odes to Spring and the rustic, sensual pleasures of imaginary Summer evenings take the listener down green and leafy paths to secret gardens and shining fountains. A splendid companion piece to 'Model Village' but at the same time something entirely new.
Deluxe three CD clamshell boxed collection. Dreamy Screens: Soundtracks from the Echo Observatory set features three albums, all recorded at Bill Nelson's Yorkshire home studio, the Echo Observatory, in 1981 and 1982 - Sounding the Ritual Echo (originally issued as a limited edition bonus LP with Bill's 1981 album Quit Dreaming and Get On the Beam), Das Kabinet (a soundtrack to a production of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari by The Yorkshire Actors Company issued as an LP on Bill's Cocteau label in 1981) and La Belle et La Bete (a soundtrack to a stage production of Jean Cocteau's classic 1946 film Beauty & the Beast, first issued as a limited edition bonus LP with Bill's 1982 album The Love That Whirls).
Official reissue of Bill Nelson’s classic & long deleted six cd boxed set originally released in 2002. Eestores the original boxed set artwork & book. Esoteric Recordings’ imprint Cocteau Discs are very pleased to announce the re-release of one of the most sought after titles in BILL NELSON’s extensive solo catalogue, the boxed set "NOISE CANDY”. Originally released in 2002 on the Tone Swoon imprint, the set was available for a matter of months before the distributors ceased to exist. "NOISE CANDY” was a fascinating project that gathered together a host of recordings made by Bill at his various home studios between 1990 and 2000. Featuring 121 tracks, the set comprised 6 CDs of songs and instrumental music, each CD an album in their own right and entitled variously "Old Man Future Blows the Blues”, "Stargazing With Ranger Bill”, "Sunflower Dairy Product”, "King Frankenstein”, "Console” and "Playtime”.
ESOTERIC RECORDINGS imprint Cocteau Discs, the home of BILL NELSON’s catalogue between 1971 and 2001, continues their series of on-going releases with the newly remastered and expanded release of his 1986 album "GETTING THE HOLY GHOST ACROSS”. Released in 1986, the record was Bill’s sole album for the Portrait label, and was a superbly realised work. Previously released on CD as strictly limited edition of 500 copies on Bill’s Sonolux label, the album is hugely sought after on CD by collectors.