both equally overrated
― Poliopolice, Sunday, 19 February 2012 08:10 (twelve years ago) link
I first listened to Spirit of Eden at a time of crisis in my life. It was the year I graduated college and my first love/first relationship ended. I was at rock bottom. Spirit of Eden was the most deeply moving and spiritually cathartic album I had ever heard.
Around the same time, I had also listened to similar albums such as Hex (Bark Psychosis) which became one of my favorite albums and is, for me, perfect late-night listening and the quintessential winter album. At this time, I listened to Laughing Stock, as well, and, although its instrumental complexities were entrancing, it simply did not speak to my emotions the way Spirit of Eden did.
Spirit of Eden is still the album I go to when I'm at my lowest and searching for my path.
It's one of my Desert Island albums, alongsideA Storm in Heaven (The Verve)No Other (Gene Clark)Lazer Guided Melodies (Spiritualized)
― Graveyard Poet, Monday, 25 February 2013 09:35 (eleven years ago) link
is "I Believe in You" the greatest song of ALL TIME?
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:21 (three years ago) link
...spirit...
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:22 (three years ago) link
it is yes
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:22 (three years ago) link
confirmed, thank you
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:23 (three years ago) link
love this lip-synced nod-along
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16mDl6dlfmE
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:24 (three years ago) link
there used to be a fantastic fan-made video for I Believe in You composed of shots from a really old black-and-white TV show but it's sadly gone now
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:27 (three years ago) link
is it this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIORDxFPccQ
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:46 (three years ago) link
nah the band aren't in it... I meant TV show from like the 1950s
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:49 (three years ago) link
this one's pretty cool though!
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 November 2020 06:54 (three years ago) link
god, i always thought it was
spirit...
eden...
didn't realize it was "how long"
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:04 (three years ago) link
xp f hazel actually that video i posted gets a little weird! there's RT footage in the middle!
uh...i don't know, sorry
talk talk rules
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:06 (three years ago) link
i have been a fan for a while, but things kicked up a gear a couple weeks ago
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:07 (three years ago) link
if RT is astroturfing with fan-made talk talk videos the state is getting really deep
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:12 (three years ago) link
just to go along with the thread, though, "after the flood" may be as good.
i love the drums. i have been playing drums a lot, throughout my life. talk talk drums are so fucking good
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:16 (three years ago) link
"new grass" drums especially, too, jfc. very good
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:17 (three years ago) link
and NOT in a technical sense, or an "unusual" sense (different time signatures). i mean, yes to those too, well done talk talk drummer(s?), but first and foremost i just mean their intuitive drive, the heart of it all. a very tasteful drummer, whoever it is. sorry if it's a session drummer, or a bill-berry-esque-legend. i don't really know. but they're great.
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:19 (three years ago) link
make sure you spend some time with the trinity of flawless b-sides... it's getting late in the evening, for what it's worth, and john cope
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:20 (three years ago) link
which ones do you mean?
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 07:22 (three years ago) link
treat me like a dope, i'm made out of soap
just paul harris hittin' things
― imago, Thursday, 5 November 2020 09:35 (three years ago) link
ffs ruined it by merging the bassist and the drummers' names, nightmare
and now a double apostrophe fail. better put some talk talk on to recover
― imago, Thursday, 5 November 2020 09:36 (three years ago) link
talk' talk'
― A Scampo Darkly (Le Bateau Ivre), Thursday, 5 November 2020 09:46 (three years ago) link
Was listening to these just yesterday, 'For What It's Worth' in particular I really love, I think it suggests another direction they could've headed off in at that point.
― Gavin, Leeds, Thursday, 5 November 2020 10:31 (three years ago) link
Those two Colour of Spring b-sides would have been better on the album than April 5th and Chameleon Day, which are two of my least favourite songs they did. I also prefer Pictures of Bernadette to I Don't Believe in You, but that might have made the album more rock-oriented than they would have wanted.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 5 November 2020 15:38 (three years ago) link
April 5th and Chameleon Day, which are two of my least favourite songs they did.
interestingly, these are the two songs harris doesn't play on!
i will definitely be checking out the b-sides today, but holding off until night time is the right time
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 16:18 (three years ago) link
i immediately abandoned my plan and listened via youtube. :)
they sound really great, thanks for the recommendation. i do find it hard to approach later-era talk talk songs in isolation, though. even the songs i absolutely adore from laughing stock and spirit of eden, i need to the rest of the album to lead me up to them.
ugh, the outro on "it's getting late in the evening" is excellent. i may just start integrating this into my Colour of Spring playlist
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 16:39 (three years ago) link
You know, I've never really thought about it before, because the music itself is more than enough to think about, but the title "Spirit of Eden" possesses a pretty profound double meaning. On the one hand, there's the notion of capturing the pastoral innocence of paradise/Eden. On the other is the idea that we are all ghosts, spirits, haunting what used to be Eden.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 5 November 2020 17:11 (three years ago) link
or that the idea of eden haunts us, too
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 17:21 (three years ago) link
Yeah, all that good stuff.
― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, 5 November 2020 17:22 (three years ago) link
for me, though, it's all about the way he says "spirit..." in I Believe In You. he doesn't actually say "eden" afterward (for a long time i thought he did), but it hangs in the air along with "spirit" because of the album title. and there's something so sad in that word, sung in that way, alone. "...spirit..."
― @oneposter(✔️) (Karl Malone), Thursday, 5 November 2020 17:23 (three years ago) link
the idea that we are all ghosts, spirits, haunting what used to be Eden.
This has always been our interpretation of it.
― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin), Thursday, 5 November 2020 17:42 (three years ago) link
wtf april 5th and chameleon day are both incredible
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Thursday, 5 November 2020 18:06 (three years ago) link
or in the spirit of eden, where mankind fell from grace as I read it
― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Thursday, 5 November 2020 18:07 (three years ago) link
April 5th and Chameleon Day sound to me like they are reaching for the Spirit of Eden sound without getting it yet. The former has an irritating programmed percussion part and the latter has a weird quasi-wind-quartet intro and outro that they would soon replace with acoustic instruments.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 5 November 2020 18:16 (three years ago) link
like they are reaching for the Spirit of Eden sound without getting it yet
this for me is 100 percent the appeal of colour of spring but one's mileage varies i guess
― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Thursday, 5 November 2020 18:23 (three years ago) link
no album with 'life's what you make it' on it can ever be anything less than a great album imo
― imago, Thursday, 5 November 2020 18:24 (three years ago) link
I love the transitional quality of April 5th and Chammelon Day - the band finding all that breath and space and not feeling the need to fill it.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Thursday, 5 November 2020 20:41 (three years ago) link
The results of this poll will never stop amusing me. I actually voted for LS but I changed my mind last night to SoE and will change it again. I actually think MH is my not-polled answer though. Well, it was last night when I listened to all three. It changes all the time.
― Gerneten-flüken cake (jed_), Monday, 9 November 2020 01:54 (three years ago) link
Both are perfect, Laughing Stock a wee bit more so.
― pomenitul, Monday, 9 November 2020 01:56 (three years ago) link
the organ tone on laughing stock is one of music’s finest sounds
― la table sur la table (voodoo chili), Monday, 9 November 2020 02:30 (three years ago) link
I bought these two records and Mark Hollis right when they came out, and I agree that the solo album is the best of the three. Even details like the room tone at the opening and closing are perfectly timed. The album is an unexpected mixture of warmth and austerity; I credit it with helping me though the depressive year when it was issued.
When you listen to records as many times as I have heard these, you have to be honest with yourself about what you feel is not working. I've always found Taphead and Runeii on Laughing Stock a little arid. In a way, the progression didn't become clear to me until 1998.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 9 November 2020 03:02 (three years ago) link
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 5 November 2020 18:16 (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink
wtf the programmed percussion on "April 5th" is brilliant
― Tim F, Monday, 9 November 2020 04:29 (three years ago) link
about 2 minutes into "The Rainbow", at the start of "Spirt of Eden" - what is that scribbling noise? is it a pen or pencil scribbling? to me it sounds like someone just scratching over something
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 01:05 (two years ago) link
Apparently it's Hugh Davies playing the "shozyg", an electronic instrument of his own making.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 01:14 (two years ago) link
i see.
i also love how on this most holy albums of subtlety, the big drums on "Desire" include a big, conkin' cowbell. CONK CONK CONK CONK!
lol
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 01:22 (two years ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/fAuFMhp.png
― Karl Malone, Tuesday, 7 September 2021 01:54 (two years ago) link
true google pros know to use only 3 sets of quotation marks