Nelson formed Red Noise after dissolving
Be-Bop Deluxe, Red Noise released only one album,
Sound-on-Sound, plus two singles, "Furniture Music" and "Revolt into Style", in February and April 1979. hints that several of the songs in
Sound-on-Sound were written during his Be-Bop Deluxe days and might have been included in any Be-Bop album subsequent to
Drastic Plastic had that band remained together. However, Nelson also makes clear that he regarded Red Noise as an escape from Be-Bop Deluxe rather than its continuation: "
Drastic Plastic was the last-ditch attempt to get the band to change a bit but it was difficult for people to accept." Touring England to promote the album, Red Noise performed a Be-Bop song from
Drastic Plastic, "Possession." In a 1984 interview, Nelson revealed that he had recorded a second Red Noise album immediately after
Sound-on-Sound but that his record company
Harvest Records didn't like it: "
EMI wouldn't release it, and it sat on the shelf." Nelson's manager eventually purchased some of the unreleased songs back from EMI so that Nelson could release them as a solo artist under his own label, Cocteau Records. One of these was "Do You Dream in Colour", which received generous radio airplay and press coverage for its original music video. This track and one on the B-side featured all vocals and instruments by Nelson himself apart from sax by Ian Nelson. Two other tracks, "Ideal Homes" and "Instantly Yours", featured the Nelson/Nelson/Ford/Clark/Peer line-up. This release attracted the attention of
Phonogram, who secured the remaining tracks for Cocteau to release the full album,
Quit Dreaming And Get on the Beam, credited simply to Bill Nelson, on their subsidiary label
Mercury Records in 1981. Red Noise had not been originally intended as a band so much as a name under which Nelson could bring in musicians as required without being tied down to a fixed band line-up. However, the commercial pressures of the music business meant that it didn't work out that way. Where only one track on
Quit Dreaming was credited to Red Noise, it clearly referred to the band: "Disposable" featured the Bill Nelson/Ford/Clark/Peer line-up. Many other tracks featured both Bill and Ian Nelson. The
Sound-on-Sound album title inspired the publishers of
Sound on Sound to name their magazine after it. Harvest's 2012 CD reissue of
Sound-on-Sound contained not only tracks from single B-sides previously unreleased on that format, but also a
BBC Radio 1 Friday Rock Show session from 17 February 1979 previously unreleased on any format. ==Discography==