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An odd choice of single perhaps, not the most immediate song to shout ‘single’ release from ‘Telekon’ – but then, neither was ‘This Wreckage’, was it? This 12″ single was only released in the then West Germany and was immediately of appeal to collectors worldwide due to its attractive sleeve design and unique pairing of tracks. Remember, for me anyway, this was the era of interesting import releases that would be listed in the back pages of music papers such as Sounds, NME, etc with excitingly brief descriptions as ‘diff pic bag’ indicating some (variable) picture sleeve design from the familiar UK versions.

^ Gary Numan – ‘Remember I Was Vapour’ (Live) West German 12″ front cover design

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Welcome back to the second part of our look at the wonderful world of Bill Nelson on CD, a small number of CD variants that played fast and loose with running orders, which may either leave you smacking your lips in anticipation of the otherwise unavailable obscurities to be found, or bamboozled at the wrecking ball taken to otherwise fine original tracklists. We already looked at Bill’s first solo release on Mercury records, ‘Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam’ – now, we move on to his second, ‘The Love That Whirls (Diary of a Thinking Heart)’.

^ Bill Nelson ‘The Love That Whirls’ CDs

Cocteau Records, JC CD 16 (1986)

The first UK release on CD for ‘The Love That Whirls (Diary of a Thinking Heart)’, released 25th July 1986 (along with ‘Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam’) four years on from the original release date, under the ‘Cocteau Collectors’ imprint/series. From the off, this edition played around with the original running order by landing two period B sides in the middle of the running order. ‘Flesh’ and ‘He and Sleep Were Brothers’ (both originally hailing from the ‘Eros Arriving’ double-pack 7″ single) were placed in the space between the original side 1 and side 2 of the vinyl album. On top of this a further change was made by swapping in a remix of ‘Hope for the Heartbeat’ in place of the original vinyl LP version of the song. The remix adds in an additional oriental sounding synth melody as well as a prominent additional layer of electronic percussion not a million miles away from that used by Gary Numan on ‘Cars’ – and the harmony vocals toward the end of the track seem to be boosted in volume too. (more…)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Bill Nelson on CD – a small number of CD variants that played fast and loose with running orders, which may either leave you smacking your lips in anticipation of the otherwise unavailable obscurities to be found, or bamboozled at the wrecking of otherwise fine tracklists. Starting with Bill’s first solo release on Mercury records, ‘Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam’.

^ Bill Nelson ‘Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam’ CDs

Cocteau Records, JC CD 15

The first UK release on CD, released 25th July 1986 according to one of my Bill Nelson fan club newsletters from June 1986, five years in from the original release date. This edition was largely faithful to the original album release tracklisting except for the addition of one extra track, ‘White Sound’, slapped bang in the middle of proceedings and swapping the version of ‘Living In My Limousine’ for the 12″ remix version. The sleeve design also stayed close to home to the original for the front/back, but the inner spread made use of two photos from the same session as used for the ‘Do You Dream In Colour’ single, by the excellent Brian Griffin, sadly uncredited on this release. The inner spread doesn’t attempt to replicate the original so there are no lyrics, but the original credits in hand-written style are preserved.  (more…)