Bill Nelson - Simplex (1990)

Featuring some recordings made for the documentary film Henry Moore and Landscape, Bill Nelson's Simplex surrounds these commissioned bits with "complementary compositions" for an organic-meets-otherworldly instrumental album, one right in line with sculptor Moore's work. The feeling to be had here is that of walking through green acres and mossy fields with semi-abstract distractions appearing along the way. In his liner notes, Nelson describes these pieces as "haiku-like," perfectly conveying their size (short) and build (delicate). Fans familiar with his silent film soundtracks (Das Kabinet and La Belle et la Bete) will find the size of these two-minutes-or-less pieces familiar, and if Nelson's ADD-styled kind of ambient is an acquired taste, Simplex is its best advocate, coming off as a diminutive suite instead of a disjointed set of ideas. Echoing gongs and hissing synths makes "Bronze" an easy pick, while "Likewise Is Said Elsewhere" finds Nelson pulling a Penguin Café Orchestra out of his charmingly dated synth, giving the album an elegant garden party break with sampled bassoon and strings. Speaking of dated, these recordings come from 1987-1988 but didn't see release until 1990 when a fan club giveaway turned into a debacle. When "unsold" copies of the 1990 Simplex kept turning up in shops, Nelson accused his management of bootlegging the album, not considering any release "official" till it was issued in a limited run (500 copies) in 2000. Wide release followed in 2012, and suddenly the lawsuit-launching, career-changing, and mythical Simplex album revealed itself as harmless and warm stuff, better for small, personal revolutions or background listening and not what you'd put on while bringing down an empire.