Review Revue: Scala Featuring Bill Nelson & Daryl Runswick - "Secret Ceremony (Theme from Brond)"

This week's installment of Review Revue -- as is often the case -- finds me learning about all sorts of things I never knew existed, most of which are listed in the title of this very post. Bill Nelson and Daryl Runswick? Never heard of either. Scala? Brond? No idea. And yet due to the technological marvel known as Internet, I can quickly glean not only abundant information about all of these things, but even experience them in real time! Nelson and Runswick appear to be fascinating figures in English music spanning over the past half-century or so. In 1987 they collaborated to write the theme to a Channel Four three-part series called Brond (based on a book I'd never heard of by Frederic Lindsay, a writer I'd never heard of). In case you'd like to hear the theme, you could do so right here . . . or right here, in context, as you watch the actual dang show. (And holy crap, just try to watch the first four minutes and not get sucked into this madness.)

Oh, and while you're YouTube'ing, you should probably check out this incredible 1985 clip featuring Bill Nelson - who looks like a baby but was apparently 37 at the time. What a wonderful, magical, horrible, terrible time we live in! I'm so glad Bill Nelson and Daryl Runswick are still living in it too. I hope they'll be happy to know this little record they made 40 years ago was so well-received at a little college radio station in Seattle.

"Cue past the big click on side B then fade up. The music sounds like the picture looks."

"This is beautiful. Oh, excuse me . . . heavenly."

"This is lush!"

"Lovely!"

"Sublime. (I learned that word in art history.)"

"LAH! LAH!! LAH!!!"

"Cheese. Golly. Shucks."

"If a picture is worth a thousand words is it worth a thousand notes, too? Let's count 'em."