this is not pitchfork

The only thing I knew about Bill Nelson when I first heard the song Acceleration was that he had been in the band BeBop Deluxe. I liked the song enough that I had the import guy at the record store where I was working order the EP it was on (Chimera). For some reason, I never really listened to it. It wasn’t until a year later when we got in the Vistamix album (which was Chimera in its entirety, plus a few other songs) that I decided to give Nelson’s music a full listen.

Vistamix immediately worked its way into my brain and my very being. The way it attached itself to me was almost organic; the weird beats, the synthetic sounds and Bill Nelson’s odd voice formed together and grew out of that vinyl like twisted vines from exotic trees that wrapped themselves around me. The music enveloped me, became part of me and made me feel this connection with all the parts of musical sound in a way that I thought only a microdot of mescaline could show me. I was tripping without benefit of chemicals. I was tripping on this music.

I would spend hours upon hours in the months after that experiencing Vistamix in new ways; one night listening to nothing but Acceleration over and over and the next night doing the same thing with Flaming Desire or Another Day, Another Ray of Hope. I’d play with the equalizer settings on my stereo in an attempt to catch notes I may have missed. I listened on speaker, then the other. Vistamix was this huge musical experiment for me.

Later that year I had the pleasure of seeing Bill Nelson play at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, New York. His live performance matched every feeling I got from listening to the album. I remember being so completely blown away by the show that I thought at one point “I’m going to remember this forever.” And I did, right down to the blue light that bathed Nelson on the stage that was about two feet in front of me.

I still listen to this album every once in a while. It never loses that feeling of getting me lost inside the sounds.