ALBUM NOTES:

Mazda Kaleidoscope is an instrumental album issued on the Sonoluxe label in a single print run of 1000 copies.
The album was recorded as the third and final part of a trilogy of complementary releases, the associated albums being Silvertone Fountains and Illuminated at Dusk.

Although its roots can be traced back to October 2007 in the form of an earlier unrealized project with both audio and visual content called The Evening Illuminator, Mazda Kaleidoscope began to take shape in February 2008 just as Nelson had completed work on the associated albums. At this stage the album was called Starlight Cascade and was tentatively planned as a DVD album, with the emphasis on minimalist, abstract pieces, rather than the guitar based instrumentals that dominates both Silvertone Fountains and Illuminated at Dusk. One track slated for inclusion was the long form video piece, "The Enlightenment Engine" (initially intended for inclusion on The Evening Illuminator album) but this would ultimately fall by the wayside and turn up eventually on the Picture House DVD.

By March 2008 Nelson had abandoned the idea of Starlight Cascade being a DVD and had renamed the album Mazda Kaleidoscope featuring 8 tracks, including an instrumental version of the The Dreamsville Poetry Experiment called "Blue Skies Listen, the Unstruck Bell" which Nelson had slightly reworked with added keyboards and guitar work.

The completed album was released in September 2008, a week later than planned due to a back log occurring at the pressing plant.

Mazda Kaleidoscope sold out in August 2019.


CURRENT AVAILABILITY:
 

Available for purchase as a digital download here in the Dreamsville Store.


IF YOU LIKED THIS ALBUM, YOU'LL PROBABLY ENJOY:
Theatre of Falling Leaves, Non-Stop Mystery Action, Illuminated At Dusk, Silvertone Fountains,
Luxury Wonder Moments, Gleaming Without Lights, Dreamland to Starboard, And We Fell Into A Dream


BILL'S THOUGHTS:
 

"It's definitely one for those of you who like to drift and dream. The album is meant to create a kind of tonal colour-field, a forever morphing atmosphere that envelops the listener and changes the surrounding environment."
_____

"Mazda enters a deeper, darker space and features MUCH longer tracks. It utilises a more abstract, painterly approach, concerning itself with texture and colour as much as thematic or melodic development. It's the least 'rock' flavoured album of the trilogy albums [Silvertone Fountains, Illuminated at Dusk, and Mazda Kaleidoscope], certainly the least 'gung-ho' of the three. It's all atmosphere and mystery, a fog filled with gleaming stars. Which is why I'm so fond of it!
The trilogy is meant to be heard as a whole, in sequence...each album is just one third of the total idea. Until you've heard all three in the correct sequence, you'll only get part of the epic picture it paints. However, this is only the way I intended it. YOU don't HAVE to hear it as I've suggested above at all. Nevertheless, I thought it might be of interest for you to have this insight into the way I hoped the music might work across the three albums. For me, it's one epic movie in sound."
_____

"The album is a strange fusion of styles, not just from track to track in linear fashion, but within each individual piece. The music is constantly shifting focus, one minute here, another there, overlapping textures, multi-dimensional, nebulous, quite formless at times, strongly architectural at others. Enigmas in sound to some extent...a haunted house of an album?

"This music is perhaps suited to listeners who enjoy connecting the dots, uncovering metaphors, links and ironies.
It's most peculiar stuff, but still very attractive to the ear, I hope!"
_____

"Yes, Ahura Mazda was indeed the inspiration for the title, but also the Mazda lightbulb company, (which took its name from the Zoroastrian deity).

"The concept of light, both literal and spiritual, external and internal, runs like an incandescent thread throughout a great deal of my work.

"As I'm sure many of you already know, 'Illumination', actual and symbolic, from the string of lights on a Christmas tree, the lamps and lanterns of a seaside pier, a coastal lighthouse, the Golden Mile of Illuminations on Blackpool's promenade, through to the social and cultural Enlightenment of European history, the spiritual/occult enlightenment of Rosicrucianism and other obscure esoteric schools, the hidden, quasi-masonic musings of the Illuminati, etc, etc, have all been reflected, at one time or another, in my music. (And sometimes in my private activities.)"

FAN THOUGHTS:

jetboy:

"What an album of surprises! "All The World Flies Kites Tonight" is the opening track which starts from where Illuminated finished off...beautiful melodic guitars set in golden ambience...then it's all change from there on. There's loads of piano flourishes that drift in and out of the mix, whooshes, whizzes and warbles that start, stop then catherine wheel away into the void...There's spectral Orchestras playing on a twilit coastal hill, then they are transported to some old flickering cathode museum. There's phantom steam trains taking you through some midnight moonlit town, there's disintegrating particles quickly reassembling and dancing on some old time piano keys, there's sonic ghosts looking for a home to haunt, there's static cascading, there's e-bow making the sound of Haloes, there's lamplit jazz fluctuating and weaving back and forth...so on and so on. A word of warning: Don't play this album too much. You may not want to return from this aural bliss. 10/10."


Holer:

"Mazda Kaleidoscope sounds like...Like I'm tuning in an alien radio station from outerspace and having it set my brain on fire (in a GOOD way!). This is way more than the next guitar album I was expecting. This is downright EPIC! You just keep on surprising and delighting, Bill!"

"It's hard to describe, but I would almost say this is a kind of deconstruction of Bill's sound. I don't know if that's the right word but the way all the sounds and instrumentation work, it's both familiar and wholly new sounding at the same time. I really think this is the next 'big push into new frontiers' album after Sailor Bill in the ever evolving sonic adventure of Mr. Nelson."


Robbot:

"So I'm sitting in this 50's retro-futuristic train, or in the passenger seat of a transparent aeroplane (not unlike Wonder Woman's). At one point early on, flying close enough to the grounds of some palatial pond/garden to see metallic swans (Birds of Tin?) luxuriating. Misty fog, glints of setting sun...pleasing static, whirrs, clicks. Could be a mad scientist working on the terrace of his stately manse. Catch a performance of the excellent on-board jazz combo...drift off into semi-dream state. Land at some exotic tropical island...dinner jacket, martini please. Everything is in slow motion...the sky looks rendered in pastels.

"These are my initial impressions...and I'm only 2/3s thru. Great! Exciting...cinematic."


soteloscope:

"Mazda Kaleidoscope gives me weird feelings. The weirdness is excellent in my opinion! In addition, it's a beautiful, contemplative album that covers the whole spectrum of emotion for me."


mitchellmichael:

"This is great stuff! It just transports you away from it all and holds you in a "Dreamstate" of mind. A very calming affect with so much going on. It seems like Bill has it down to a science now...but with each release he is still pushing the limits.  Each release is a further extension of the next, with glimpses of past music inter-twined along the way. I'm 3 songs in and somehow it hits the spot instantaneously, for me anyways. The instrumental trilogy of '08 is now complete, and a huge success, IMHO."


Peter:

"Calming, a deep pool of cool water, reflecting stars and passing silver clouds. Compositions (not songs) of subtlety and nuance, tender guitar and soothing melodies. Another good one, Bill. Thank you."


ladesco:

"I thoroughly enjoy becoming enveloped by these lyrical guitar blankets to sojourn the night...gentle and breezy, and so mindfully easy...

Thank you Mr. Nelson!"
 

Seany:

"I have lived with this album now for a good few days and have played it on my home stereo, in the car, outside in the garden, at night when i was going to sleep, for friends and family and I have to say that every time I play it that it never fails to envelope me in a wonderful world of dream-like mystery...For me the dreamiest of dreams from Dreamsville this year.

"Look - I'm not Rolling Stone Magazine, but if I were, I'd give it five big gold stars. As they say in the classics, 'Highly Recommended'.

"But enough of my somnambulistic meanderings, it's dream time..."


james warner:

"Just finished playing the album for the first time. Stand outs for me at this early stage are "Lamps Are Lit in the World of Tomorrow"...and "Evening Illuminator", which sounds like it was made for a night cruise through the lights of the big city."


BenTucker:

"I love it. "The Nebulous Adventures of Newton Kyme" stood out for me on first listening - a beautiful track. I think the album's going to be one of my favourites, like Neptune’s Galaxy."


VGhost:

"All the World Flies Kites Tonight": "is a great opener - the introduction is a wash of keyboards, reversed guitar and hauntingly beautiful melodic guitar lines, which gives way to an upbeat section as the sequenced drums come in before it ends as it begins. For some reason it reminded me of my childhood trips to London on a steam train in the late 1950's - the intro waiting on the platform and the expectation of the journey beginning whilst the section with the drums has a distinct train style rhythm to my cloth ears at least.

"Other standout tracks include the ambient jazz of "Evening Illuminator", and the title track with its sampled vinyl record pops. This album requires you to make time to sit down and listen to it, not use it as a backdrop to your daily commute to work or workout at the gym.
I'm really enjoying it."


Paul Andrews:

"This is, in my opinion, a superb composition right the way through. Although an unreconstructed Be Bop Deluxe fan, I find myself drawn inexorably towards Bill's more adventurous and esoteric recordings. I really like the instrumental albums and this one could well be the soundtrack to a movie never filmed. I'd love to try and synch it up to one of those old 50's films which tried to predict the future, jet cars, domestic robots etc...
...whatever, it's certainly bloody good!"