Bill Nelson - Rooms With Brittle Views (1982)

As I mentioned in my Red Noise post, I'm a massive fan of Bill Nelson, and consider him to be a genius of modern music, with his music encompassing an extremely wide variety of genres, from folk to hard rock, new wave to electro-pop, ambient to heavy metal. This post covers his pop side, with a selection of songs recorded in 1980 and 1981, starting with 'Do You Dream In Colour', which was a left-over from songs recorded for a proposed second Red Noise album. Nelson's management obtained the tapes from Harvest/EMI after they turned down the Red Noise album, so that Nelson could release it as a solo single on his own Cocteau Records label, kick-starting another phase of his career. The success of the single encouraged his manager to purchase the remaining songs in order to release them as the superlative 'Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam' album, with further singles being released from it, in the form of the equally impressive 'Rooms With Brittle Views' and 'Living In My Limousine'. Each of these singles had two or three new songs on their flips, and all of them are great guitar-based electro-pop, with Nelson playing most of the instruments himself. This thirteen track album is made up of songs recorded over just a two year period, and with such a prolific output, you can see how he's managed to release over 100 albums since his 'Northern Dream' debut in 1971.    

Track listing

01 Rooms With Brittle Views (single 1980)

02 Dada Guitare (b-side of 'Rooms With Brittle Views')

03 Ideal Homes (b-side of 'Do You Dream In Colour' 1980)

04 Instantly Yours (b-side of 'Do You Dream In Colour' 1980)

05 Atom Man Loves Radium Girl (b-side of 'Do You Dream In Colour' 1980)

06 Birds Of Tin (b-side of 'Living In My Limousine' 1981)

07 Love In The Abstract (b-side of 'Living In My Limousine' 1981)

08 White Sound (b-side of 'Living In My Limousine' 12" 1981)

09 Be My Dynamo (b-side of 'Youth Of Nation On Fire' 1981)

10 All My Wives Were Iron (b-side of 'Youth Of Nation On Fire' 1981)

11 Turn To Fiction (b-side of 'Banal' 12" 1981)

12 Hers Is A Lush Situation (b-side of 'Banal' 12" 1981)

13 Mr. Magnetism Himself (b-side of 'Banal' 1981)