Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

Yass! Tell!

what a cool name. impossible to find anything about them. wikipedia just knows the album and the song. any clips?

Hey wait, are you one of the guys actually in Epic45? (Because if so, that's good stuff y'all do.)

xpost and practically impossible to download for the same reason? No flies on these fellers!

Yep, I'm in epic45, Ben's my name, glad you like our stuff! As for Bed, I wouldn't really know where to find any clips or mp3's to be honest, I got into them through my friend Scott (who made music under the name Portal for a while). The album's called 'The Newton Plum' and it's a lovely thing indeed. Very much indebted to the late Talk Talk sound, but stands on it's own I think. I'm rubbish at describing or explaining music, so all I'd say is try and track this album down, I reckon you'll all be into it......

Yep, I'm in epic45, Ben's my name, glad you like our stuff!

Yeah Nicky Edward at Crumbs in the Butter got me into you guys around the time of the big Disco Inferno feature he ran last year. Hi there, etc!

And obviously everyone else reading this thread should check them too, so:

http://epic45.com/

Anyway, Bed and all that.

epic45 your new album leaked today fyi

I have two Bed albums; they're alright, but not what I was looking for. Too.. sedate. Not enough chaos.

Yeah, they're definitely at the quieter end of the spectrum, but that's what I like about them I suppose.

Cutty - Yeah, well, I'm used to that now. I always wonder who the first person to offer it up is though......!

I've got the first two Bed albums as well. I think a lot of people own the first two and didn't buy the third. Funny how similar people's reactions are.

I think it's that Bed has a really Gallic connotation... in Bed's world the girls are too pretty, everyone drinks café au lait instead of beer, and people ride around on bicycles with baguettes in the panier.

In Bark Psychosis we have the underside of the Westway as a landscape and later "petrol stations and plastic people," and I think that's about as different you can get.

In Talk Talk we have Mark Hollis' weird sort of... Protestant mysticism. It's not as social, as jovial, or as concerned with continuity of history and tradition as Bed (in that Bed never really wants to achieve escape velocity from chanson but Talk Talk plays out a very abrupt and alienating rupture of selfhood).

when i listen to bark psychosis they make me think of the lights in the city by night. whereas talk talk evoke pastoral images of the countryside. could that have to do with the covers and the song titles?

When I interviewed Graham Sutton ages ago he very pointedly talked about BPO being "urban music".

i think i read that interview. the subconscious is the last remaining world power.

Yeah Talk Talk is NOT city music. Love u guys tho.

I guess not. But it really ain't pastoral either? Maybe it takes place in some kind of mystery-play kind of space like Bunyan.

you are right, it's not only pastoral. there are bukolic, pastoral passages and loud parts which hurt where mark hollis is shouting like a wounded animal. but it all seems very close to nature. nature is cruel.

nature is cruel.

chimes nicely with the nature-evil theme explored by flaming lips on 'embryonic'. i'm sure the flips would acknowledge musical connections too.

Jeez, honestly, fuck Slint.

ugh- really? people are comparing talk talk to slint?

They always have, in that both have also been cited as founders of postrock. Obviously they founded it from pretty different directions.

i really like the 'the cure's pornography invented post-rock' argument, mostly because 'post-rock' is a bit of a bogus term imo

I think Dinosaur Jr. invented post-rock, with their song "The Post".

And I think the Pixies invented postal-rock, their quiet-LOUD song structure perfectly capturing the frenzied breakdown of a harried service employee.

i don't suppose anyone ever worked out the chord progressions and tablature to the later Talk Talk stuff (as well as the Mark Hollis album)?

I could play that one chiming, melancholic chord from Myrrhman for eternity

And I think the Pixies invented postal-rock, their quiet-LOUD song structure perfectly capturing the frenzied breakdown of a harried service employee.

― henry s, Friday, November 20, 2009 8:35 AM Bookmark

Whereas it was really the Postal Service who invented pixie-rock.

And the Troggs who invented pixie dust.

but didn't like a jillion things 'found' postrock? i always figured people attributed it to sonic youth, rhys chatham, etc. tho i'm sure you could trace it back even further

I'm gonna start SBing here pretty quick so guys better get out of this thread.

reminds me why i told myself a good while ago to keep away from ilm.

but here u are

leaving

Ok, finally got around to posting this on youtube. Anyways, reminds me of late Talk Talk about as much as anyone. Healthy dose of Pink Floyd in the vocal and melody, but that's not a bad thing. And christ, this album doesn't seem to get any less obscure as the years go by:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQkU23crm3U

"Such A Shame" imo

^^^^^ why is this song not brought up every time talk talk are discussed

I blame radiohead fans

Talk Talk based their sound on "Treefingers" iirc

Steve Winwood "Spanish Dancer" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpyug3kAp2M

i did not know jaymc had released an album

sure he has--

http://migs.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/noel_josh_groban.jpg

lol

I actually own a Belgian pop album that my musical namesake plays on:
http://houbi.com/belpop/media/melongalia.jpg

How to do a band interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrgA2gzN3AA&feature=player_embedded

how great is the video for "such a shame"? great concept and execution. it seems like they really didn't want to do a video and were taking the piss, but it ended up great anyway (and with a couple of lols too).

http://www.escuchar-musica-espagnola.com/Musica-De-Los-80/Talk-Talk/images/Talk-Talk-Such-A-Shame.jpg
http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/381/016037_2.jpg

xpost That interview clip is awesome. I don't think I've ever heard Mark Hollis speak before, it kinda made me love him even more.

I think I finally "get" O Rang.

So Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock producer Phill Brown has published his autobiography:

http://www.amazon.com/Are-We-Still-Rolling-Recording/dp/0977990311/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305859189&sr=8-1

Engineer, rather. Still, one of those v. important people in the room.

And having read the book, his accounting of both the album sessions was amazing stuff -- I knew some of the general details of how long/drawn out/involved both recording sessions were but man. Apparently after Laughing Stock was finally done and dusted he sat down his family to hear it so they could know why he'd been essentially gone for half a year (something they'd already gone through with Spirit of Eden which had driven his wife to distraction). After listening to it she removed it from the CD player and apparently has never referred to it or asked about it ever again.

Meantime, also reviving this thread since Ba Da Bing is reissuing both Laughing Stock and the Mark Hollis solo album on vinyl. (Brown talks about the Hollis solo in his book as being much less complex an experience to record but still a memorable one and regretfully mentions a falling out with Hollis afterwards which might explain in part why Hollis has quietly gone to ground.)

I think I finally "get" O Rang

Brown talks about that first album as well! He says it was initially meant to be more of a collaboration between all involved but as the album came together it turned back into more of a band thing with Brown slowly worked out of the picture.

Meantime, also reviving this thread since Ba Da Bing is reissuing both Laughing Stock and the Mark Hollis solo album on vinyl

Original vinyl copies of Laughing Stock are insanely rare since so few copies were pressed, fetching up to £250 on ebay. Not selling mine though obv.