Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

steve coogan to play mark hollis in my biopic

With both Laughing Stock and the Mark Hollis album I'm still liking both of them slightly more each time I play them - even after ten+ years or however long I've had them both.

"I think so but hearing it and then listening to the .O.rang albums gives you a sense of how the two aesthetic paths work best in collaboration rather than mutual exclusion. "

On the one hand I think this is right, but on the other both the Hollis album and Herd of Instinct follow their separate muses into such distinct territory (the absolute unblemished perfection of the Hollis album; the shimmering ethnodelic melange of the 'O'Rang album) that I think they gain almost as much as they lose.

I listen to Herd of Instinct more than any Talk Talk/Hollis actually, though that SOE/LS are more important to me.

One thing it always makes me wonder is the extent to which Harris and Webb actually had a shaping influence on the last two Talk Talk albums. The rhetoric around them always implies they were effectively Hollis/Friese-Green collab-os, but then, as you say Ned, 'O'Rang is so clearly the extension of the side of the late Talk Talk sound that Hollis moves away from on his own record that that version of events seems rather implausible.

"One thing it always makes me wonder is the extent to which Harris and Webb actually had a shaping influence on the last two Talk Talk albums. The rhetoric around them always implies they were effectively Hollis/Friese-Green collab-os"

That's what I always wondered as well, especially since Webb wasn't even on LS, and Harris was just a DRUMMER. The writing credits go to Hollis/Friese-Greene. But if the O.rang album - which I haven't heard - stimulates you to use the word "ethnodelic" then I guess that changes everything.

Mark Hollis album I would recommend highly, especially for the uniquely lovely "The Colour of Spring", which is probably the only song on it that would be accepted for use on a Diana memorial documentary, but the achievement of a mainstream idea of pathos is certainly not inherently a bad thing.

and where is tim friese-green today?

http://www.heligoland.co.uk/

I don't see any mention here of Shearwater's cover of "The Rainbow". Way more plausible than I would have thought possible.

http://www.prefixmag.com/news/shearwater-the-rainbow-talk-talk-cover-mp3/18778/

I love this, from an interview with Tim Friese-Greene about a decade ago:

Interviewer: (fumbling) What sort of thing do you listen to at home?

Tim Friese-Greene: .....well not very much really. Serge Gainsbourg a bit I suppose......I like the ‘Primal Scream’ album....I mean.... the daytime radio in England is unlistenable; there are a couple of European alternative stations which you can get webcast, but in England where local calls aren’t free you can rack up a bit of a bill. Otherwise you have to spend your evenings listening to John Peel in the hope of latching on to something stimulating....

Int: (excitedly) I met John Peel once, really I did! - I bumped into him as he was posting a letter at the post office in Great Park...Great Pork...

Tim: Great Portland Street.

Int: Yes yes ...exactly!.............sorry, carry on....

Tim: ...and although I really like seeing bands live, you’re very limited out in the provinces. It’s the thing I miss most about London....Ultimately I’d have to say I’m just not really a fan of other people’s music much any more, probably because I don’t have access to the stuff that I might find diverting. It can’t bother me that much though, can it?.... or I would make more of an effort......

Int: Do you listen to your own, then?

Tim: Actually I do, I listen to it quite a lot, if only to remind myself of its brilliance.

Also:

Int: What do you think of Mark’s solo album?

Tim: I’ve never heard it, I’m afraid.

that shearwater cover is quite amazingly close to the original. the singer's voice is so similar to mark hollis', it's almost frightening. there is less pain in it though, i find. it's more restrained and less expressive.

Also:
Int: What do you think of Mark’s solo album?
Tim: I’ve never heard it, I’m afraid.

And as of November 2008, he still hadn't heard it.

What a dork. (Tim, that is.)

guys, there's an element to the breakup of Talk Talk that, while not acrimonious per se, wasn't quite amicable either. Under those meddling circumstances, would you be excited to hear your former bandmates' work? Just a POV rhetorical question...

What a dork. (Tim, that is.)
― Soundslike

I don't think that's a fair evaluation at all.

the problem is not that he didn't listen to mark hollis solo album. what makes him very dislikable is that he is so full of himself ("to remind myself of its brilliance"). what i have heard on his site was more bland than brilliant.

I let the "remind myself of its brilliance" bit slide; but that egomania combined with (likely lying about) going out of ones way to avoid hearing an ex-bandmate's album for a decade is just plain dorky.

That said, I haven't heard Pitcher, Flask, & Foxy-Moxie, maybe it's secretly "brilliant".

I can only give dorkiness a pass for so long on the basis of having produced 'The Golden Age of Wireless'.

Whole helluvalotta projecting going on in this thread. Not that I need to know artists generally hate being interviewed, but this thread brings the point home.

I mean if Tim is a jerk, I'll keep the comment in mind, as I'd do for anyone whom I don't know, but Jesus feckin Christ...

The brilliance comment is so obviously a joke though.

For what it's worth, "dork" is hardly the most damning pejorative. . .

i hate to drop the B word but "the colour of spring" = balearic

(the album, not the song off the hollis s/t)

Name some bands who'd love to sound like Talk Talk - latter day Shearwater, early Elbow, Reckoner by Radiohead, any odd song here and there that betrays the influence of Spirit of Eden etc; I'm making a playlist.

Catherine Wheel - "Thunderbird" is a fucking awesome power-ballad take on TT imo

Stars Like Fleas - The Ken Burns Effect

Hood show a TT influence, albeit manifested in a very different way.

Tortoise - TNT

Blu Mar Ten - "Home Videos"

I'm pretty sure it actually samples Talk Talk. This is not a drum and bass track by the way. It's ambient/leftfield. Or something.

I think XTC should have a song on this mix but after watching youtubes of XTC songs I can't find any that really match Talk Talk.

Something off of Skylarking maybe, but not really.

Sweet Billy Pilgrim - http://www.myspace.com/sweetbillypilgrim
Autistic Daughters - http://www.myspace.com/autisticdaughters
The Slow Life - http://www.myspace.com/theslowlife

I love Reckoner, but I don't think it sounds anything like Talk Talk.

"Cheerleader" or "Dory" from the new Grizzly Bear?

It's the drumbeat in reckoner; I've always thought it was going for a radio-friendly New Grass vibe.

Bark Psychosis - "Scum"

Oh Yeah, that first song from Pygmalion by Slowdive, the long one.

Anything by the band Bed. The album 'The Newton Plum' is a beauty.......

a precursor would be japan. as a sideline: like mark hollis voice david sylvian's voice is an acquired taste. even more so actually.

slint maybe. but i only know their great cover of "cortez the killer".

tortoise's djed from "millions now living will never die" should be mentioned here. probably my favourite post-talk talk track in the vein of talk talk.

i don't know if i agree with any of those statements. and you've only heard slint's cover of cortez the killer? no desire to look any further into their catalog?

a precursor would be japan.

Just heard "Ghosts" on shuffle this morning and now I'm on a huge Japan kick today.

probably i have listened to other slint songs from spiderland. but they didn't leave any impression.

i think it is extremely different to find bands sounding like talk talk. but i would really like to listen to one of them right now. talk talk should not have been allowed to finish with "laughing stock". how can a band get away with stopping at their peak? the mark hollis solo album doesn't really do it for me, it is a little to spare for my liking. and his voice is too much in the foreground.

"happiness is easy" dub mix killin it for me right now

a precursor would be the first three sylvian solo albums, more precisely

bark psychosis is very talk talk, if you are looking for stuff in the same vein

bark psychosis comes close. and i like them. dustsucker more than hex. but there is something missing in the dynamics department. their stuff is usually quite slow and measured. again their singer's voice is an acquired taste.

i don't find anything weird about his voice at all

maybe that is the annoying thing about his voice. that it is too normal. too unremarkable. i mean he is a singer so there should be something special about his voice. otherwise there is no point in singing.

Totally concur with the Autistic Daughters suggestion upthread. Such a great band. Mostly just voice, double bass, guitar and some pretty free-range drumming so it obv. doesn't have the orchestrated feel of Talk Talk, but it does share the same sense of quiet drama conducted behind a gauzy veil. The Dean Roberts solo records are well worth picking up too.

Youtubes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOuN36Vg5DQ

hay guys, how is O.rang? been meaning to check them out lately

Pretty stellar, both albums excellent. It's a crude division but if Hollis solo is the restrained, fragile side of late TT, then O.rang is the free flowing experimentation and strangeness.

I found the O.rang albums very dull and dated sounding (I think I said this elsewhere). they have a kind of 'electronic world music' feel to them that I don't care for. Or at least, that was my impression years ago.

I love both albums, particularly Fields and Waves as it beefs up the weaker elements of the first record