“Acceleration” by Bill Nelson

"Acceleration" comes off Chimera, the compact record Bill Nelson released in May 1983, and it's close to a one-man show: Nelson wrote the words and music, sings it, plays bass, electric guitar and synthesizer, and produced and engineered it himself. The outside help is well chosen. Yukihiro Takahashi, the Japanese drummer from YMO, sits behind the kit, Ian Nelson adds saxophone and Jan Nelson sings backing vocals.

The sessions ran through autumn 1982 and were meant to produce a four-track EP; what emerged was six tracks lasting under half an hour, usually filed as a mini album, and the last of Nelson's trilogy on Mercury after Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam and The Love That Whirls. The Takahashi connection ran both ways, too: Nelson had played E-bow guitar on the drummer's solo album What, Me Worry?

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.