Dream Academy

The Dream Academy were a 1980s British folk rock band, comprising singer/guitarist Nick Laird-Clowes, multi-instrumentalist (chiefly oboeist) Kate St John and keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel. They are most noted for their only hit single, Life in a Northern Town.

Nick and Gilbert met each other in the late 1970s while Nick was in a band called The Act. Their idea was to create a songscape different from the power pop groups so popular at that time in England by mixing instruments and sounds that had not been done prominently before, such as strings, woodwinds, percussion (tympani), and synthesizers. At first, Nick & Gilbert called themselves the "Politics of Pop." In the early years before they were signed, they were also rumoured to have been over a dozen rotating members of the group playing various unique instruments until Nick met Kate St. John (then of The Ravishing Beauties) at a party. Nick was immediately enthralled with Kate's amazing talent (and beauty) and asked her to join. The trio settled on the name The Dream Academy and shopped their demos for nearly two years and were rejected "by every record label" before finally land...