The Dream Academy was a British alternative pop band consisting of lead vocalist and guitarist[3] and primary songwriter[4] Nick Laird-Clowes, woodwinds player and pianist Kate St John, and keyboardist Gilbert Gabriel.

Their idea was to create a songscape different from the power pop groups popular at the time in the UK, by mixing instruments and sounds that had been rarely done prominently before, such as strings, woodwinds, percussion (timpani) and synthesizers.

[1][5] Laird-Clowes met Kate St John (then of The Ravishing Beauties) at a party and asked her to join his band.

Gilmour would go on to produce and/or play on two of their albums and co-write one Dream Academy song, "Twelve-Eight Angel".

[15] The band launched a worldwide promotional tour based on the chart success of "Life in a Northern Town" and appeared on the television programmes Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show, American Bandstand (with Dick Clark), MTV (interview with J. J. Jackson), and Top of the Pops.