VersionCrazy

It was initially a surprise to me when the ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ LP was released that ‘I’m Your Money’ was overlooked for inclusion, whereas ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’ was all present and correct. I was quite partial to ‘I’m Your Money’, its sequenced rhythm had a touch of the ‘Trans-Europe Express’ to it and it’s multi-lingual speech inserts also hinted at that Kraftwerk-like ambition to cross borders. But it was left off and that was that, until I came across this pressing that is…

^ Heaven 17 – Penthouse and Pavement – Canadian LP front cover design

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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…)