Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

bought in 1995 for £500k [/dailymail]

again, his wife might be a lawyer or doctor or something

i heard it's my life on the radio today (no doubt versh but still)

alfred i enjoyed your piece and i'm sorry that you have such whiny commenters under your articles

>recommended reading about this?

liner notes or AVClub or Dominique's review for the In A Silent Way box set are good. best thing is just to listen to the original take & final version back to back (though even the 'original take' on the box was already pruned a bit too). IASW thread here ok as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnI17nFA-GQ

thanks! i think i first started listening to that via the boxset so have come at it backwards, didn't realise that the editing had played such a large role in it at all.

You know, I don't think I knew Steve Winwood was on "Colour of Spring," but I swear "Give It Up" always reminded me of '80s Steve Winwood, esp. the organ and sub-chorus or post-chorus part. Ironic, since it's a track I don't think he plays on, but even Hollis' vox sort of resemble Winwood's vox.

Was listening to 'Living In Another World' earlier - that bit where all the instruments drop out and then there's that one chord that basically sounds like someone lobbing half a housebrick into the piano

I was out to dinner with a friend last night, and heard what I could have sworn was "Ascension Day" piping out the PA (which had otherwise been playing Wire and Talking Heads). Anyway, I mentioned that Mark Hollis had just died to my friend, and he had heard, but - and this is where it'll be fun - he actually is one of those people who knew of the band and liked a lot of the music but *didn't know the last two or three records!*. Needless to say, I'm excited to introduce them to someone to hear what they think.

Yeah, "Give It Up" has a sound that is powerfully evocative of 80s radio for me to, Josh... although instead of Winwood, it makes the think of Robert Plant's "Big Log". And Tears for Fears!

Winwood's "Spanish Dancer" from the early 80s is v. Talk Talk

let's talk about the CoS B-sides.

Pictures of Bernadette. Such a weird tune. Sounds like it was composed during It's My Life but given birth in the soundworld of Colour of Spring. It has a bridge and that just seems so talk talk 1.0. Catchy as fuck. Skronkiest guitar solo up to this point in their career - is that robbie mcintosh or mark?

It's Getting Late in the Evening and For What it's Worth - both total godhead the equal of anything on CoS or SoE, I sure wish they had included these on the record. CoS has one too many bangers IMO and could have used one or two more brooders enhanced with Variophon.

I see I made the same comparison in this thread fifteen years ago

i love that winwood LP so much

one of the few albums directly inspired by spirit of eden that i think absorbs that influence correctly is fumbling towards ecstasy by sarah mclachlan ok i'll show myself out

this album is blowing me away, i had no idea

xp Yeah, Arc of a Diver is perfect but I hadn't noticed the possible influence on TT until now.

Returning to the slightly voyeuristic pics of MH's home, I'm thinking that the prominence of a piano suggests that he never lost interest in playing or even composing music. It's more likely that he was exceptionally mindful about what he chose to release. This SPIN interview with Brian Reitzell supports this idea. One wonders if Reitzell will ever choose release the entire soundtrack. I suspect that he won't.

“The producers wanted Philip Glass, but Mark loved the script, and then he made some music and sent it to me,” Reitzell says. “Hollis did it with the refined elegance of a great composer, but then I didn’t use it.” The reasons, he says, were all too typical for Hollywood: The studio meddled with the film, firing both the director and producer and drastically changing the film. “They took the movie away from everybody, so I protected Mark and pulled the music,” says Reitzell. (Ultimately, a sliver of this music appeared when Reitzell did music supervision for Gus Van Sant’s short-lived television series, Boss.)

this album is blowing me away, i had no idea

― diamonddave85​​ (diamonddave85), Thursday, February 28, 2019 11:11 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hell yeah!!!!!!

Wow at the Fumbling comparison, v v otm

Man, some of the editing/mixing on Spirit of Eden is so incredible -- there's that moment in Rainbow where it goes from the sort of "verse" part into I guess what could be called a refrain, where there's this very quick and smooth transition from an almost screechy sound into what sounds almost like a building up church organ swell into a hammond organ and then suddenly everything drops out and it's just the piano, chills

even more impressive when you factor that much of the record was made by piecing together chunks of improvisation

Wow at the Fumbling comparison, v v otm

― flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, February 28, 2019 12:37 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sarah and pierre marchand talked about spirit of eden in interviews a lot around the time, whenever they were asked about the sound of solace/fumbling/surfacing. the only reason i know about this is bc i had to research it lol but it was a huge revelation

Rocko Schamoni, a German musician, ex-punk, writer, comedian and entertainer had planned to seek out Mark Hollis and give him some flowers to say thank you for all. Unfortunately it won't happen anymore. But at least he made a song. Mark Hollis lebt!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5nulPjQD_o

i am gonna listen to sarah mclachlan now it seems!

i mostly like that SM record but it doesn't much in common with SoE beyond the instrumental palette iirc

Pictures of Bernadette. Such a weird tune.

Just refreshed my memory of this one. That riff in the chorus sounds like 96 Tears or something! Like 'Talk Talk' the song, it reminds me a lot of Teardrop Explodes, another band that were purported to be Duran Duran-esque new pop but had a big splash of garage psych about them

and the title seems like a Who nod.

Not strictly a b side, but Why Is It So Hard (from 84, a film soundtrack song) is amazing. The Asides Besides compilation is fabulous and was v important to me when I was first exploring TT.

Was that the one Hollis pushed back on? Or was it the remixes release?

and the title seems like a Who nod.

The Who Tops

It was the remixes album I think xp

Asides Besides has some extended mixes on the first disc which I understand he wasn’t always keen on, but the second disc is purely b sides (and Why Is It So Hard).

https://www.allmusic.com/album/asides-besides-mw0000455804

and the title seems like a Who nod.

He did start off in a mod band after all.

could also be a nod to status quo

Asides Besides is not a cash in, it is absolutely essential (for disc 2)

One thing that hasn’t been discussed in this global wake is his peculiar habit of titling songs (or albums) after pre-existing classic songs to which they bear no resemblance whatsoever. This practice stretches from the first album all the way to his solo.

btw quo also had songs called 'caroline', 'looking out for caroline' and 'the party ain't over yet'. massive quo fan was hollis

Asides Besides has some extended mixes on the first disc which I understand he wasn’t always keen on, but the second disc is purely b sides (and Why Is It So Hard).

― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy)

maybe he wasn't, but the extended "life's what you make it" (actually a completely different recording afaik) is great

i never should have traded that comp. it's so amazing.

has anyone ever heard this?

i like the song that goes 🎶my polish friend/don’t try to live my life 🎶

Here's the Anja Garbarek album Mark co-produced/arranged(and played bass, piano & melodica)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxCxoiuLG7c

Steven Wilson, Robert Wyatt and Richard Barbieri are also on there, quite a line-up.

from two separate interviews in 1994:

But unlike Gabriel, whose interest in exotic rhythms derived in large part from his own interest in the sound of other cultures, McLachlan doesn't spend her time listening to recordings of African and Asian music. Or much of anything else.

"I used to listen to Peter Gabriel," she says. "I don't listen to anybody now."

Why not? "I just don't hear anything I like" she says. "Haven't for years. Or else it's a I-like-it-but-now-I'm-over-it kind of thing. So I have my five or 10 CDs that I've had for five or 10 years -- the music that I've liked. I've got 'Thursday Afternoon' by Brian Eno, I've got 'Closing Time' by Tom Waits, 'Spirit of Eden' by Talk Talk, and those are the only CDs I've listened to for years. I keep going back to them, because they fulfill me."

What kinds of things can a songwriter do to be open and ready to write?

Well, for me on this new record, it was mainly secluding myself, being away from society and being away from everything. I locked myself up in a cabin in the mountains and stayed there for seven months. It was just an amazing time for me to really focus on a lot of stuff that had sort of been lurking behind the scenes in my brain, but never had the time to come out. Or it kept being put aside, because there were so many distractions. Also I think, I got incredibly in tune with the earth, with nature, like I hadn’t before. I couldn’t write a thing for three months. My brain was eating itself. It was terribly cold out and I couldn’t do anything creative. I was just frozen. Everything was churning around inside but nothing would come out. Then spring happened and everything totally opened up. I was blossoming as well.

Most of the songs were written then, between April and May. The place I got to in myself of feeling calm and peaceful and also for the first time in my life, feeling I’m happy now. Not “I would be happy if … “ There was always that going on with me. I finally got to a place where I was totally happy and peaceful and living in the present tense instead of in the future.

Did you go into that experience with any sort of agenda?

Well, in the process of not being able to write, I kept a journal, these sort of morning pages. I wrote three pages before I’d do anything else, just to try and clear my head. Most of it was totally banal like “Mmm, coffee smells good, I have nothing to say, I have nothing to say” (laughs) for 10 times. But sure enough, about midway through the second page, sometimes I’d really open up and all this stuff would come out. You know, you’re not really awake yet and you’re just sort of spewing whatever’s on the top of your head in free form. And there was no editing happening there at all, because no one was going to read this book. I could say whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to hide behind anything, and I think that really helped me. To be really open and honest with myself, that was good. I’m pretty good at deceiving myself or I’ve known myself to do that in the past (laughs).

Did you listen to music while you were there?

I listened to a lot of Tom Waits, and Talk Talk’s Spirit of Eden, which is one of my favorites.

and from a Reddit AMA a few years ago:

level 1
Sisiwakanamaru
27 points
·
4 years ago
I have two questions:
What is your favorite song and album at the moment?
What is your favorite dessert?
Thank you.
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level 2
_SarahMcLachlan
67 points
·
4 years ago
My Desert Island CD, if that is what you're asking, would be Talk Talk Spirit of Eden.

Probably chocolate eclairs. It's got a bit of all the good things - pastries, fat cream, chocolate.

xp Austin The Missing Pieces is disappointing, a slightly different mix / edit of AtF (basically foregrounding a lot of the shimmer / haze elements to fill up the track, and a different harmonica fill), three unmodified album cuts, "Stump" which is a murky drum, bass and guitar jam, "5:09" which is little mix elements from "New Grass" reversed and looped and stuff, and then "Piano" which I don't quite understand - it's an attractive, spare improv (by the sounds of it) but Discogs says it's "from the Allinson-Brown AV-1 album" which lists John Cope as the composer and nary a TT member on the disc credits. So why is it on a TT disc? Phill Brown produced it?

I still wish I had picked them up as they were released at the time, with a very beautiful piece of art:

https://www.discogs.com/Talk-Talk-Laughing-Stock-CD-Collection/release/12463899

I remember seeing it somewhere in 1992 but I didn't have money to spare for it. So I'm very glad for the resultant comp, with the extra track for whatever reason.

To my shame I bought this last year, hadn't heard the B sides and I was curious. Set me back around $50 off eBay.

Excuse my conversation with myself here, but it turns out "John Cope" is a Hollis pseudonym and so it's him on "Piano".

Love that 5:09 is listed as 5:11 long.

And yes, John Cope is a Hollis alias. After some BBC sound recordist or something? The song of the same name is incredible.

I think someone who worked with Hitchcock?

Rather good tribute show from Huey Morgan on 6 Music today. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002syd

Anyone seen this yet????

I dunno if it's Paul Webb or TF Greene, I"m guessing the latter but it's lovely to hear.

https://soundcloud.com/user-947232876/eden-rehearsal-cassette