Talk Talk (RIP Mark Hollis)

Still struggle to read the writing though 🤔 pic.twitter.com/c7bH6XQNQK

— Peter Bale (@ftodg) January 25, 2021

Backwards-sloping handwriting is so weird.

he writes his lyrics like he sings them

The cassette had typed lyrics!

Left handed?

"The cassette had typed lyrics!"

Made me laugh, not really sure why.

I guess it's an unexpected bonus of buying an inferior format.

Tonight at 8pm (U.K. time) pic.twitter.com/TcvRgaci0P

— Tim's Listening Party (@LlSTENlNG_PARTY) February 25, 2021

I keep hearing boomer tracks that remind me of "The Colour of Spring"-era Talk Talk. The first one was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpXG23PlvF4

Which I guess makes sense, given a) Winwood is kind of a ground zero vocal reference, from Gabriel to Hollis, and b) he actually plays on "The Colour of Spring." But the other was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9Omu_QYb4Q

The Winwood seems like it has more similarities to the It's My Life era, with the fretless bass and a funkier rhythm than they used on the next album. The biggest similarity with the Plant song is using the piano as bass, as in "Life's What You Make It"; I guess there is a general aura of sonic luxury and heavy studio expense to both.

Spanish Dancer, from the same album as Night Train, is very Talk Talky, imo.

i seem to recall reading in a british music mag around the early 2000s about just exactly how they got all that feedback for "after the flood."

(from what i remember)

it was some fringe japanese-engineered thing. the way it was described, it sounded more like a computer than a musical instrument. and apparently they had quite a time just getting the thing to the recording studio in the first place.

does anyone remember this? or know more specifics?

in any case, i remember it being a great subplot in the greater story.

i don't think there was mention of it in Phill Brown's book but I can go reread the laughingstock part

The story I've heard is that it was a breath controller for a synth which malfunctioned when they cued it up for a solo, but they left it recording and decided it was just what the track needed.

(from another forum) Mojo, March 2006 interview with Tim Friese-Greene: Four minutes into the song After The Flood, a 75-second gap awaited a solo. Hollis reached for the Variophon, a German, breath-controlled synthesizer which made Talk Talk's distinctive brass-banshee/distressed-elephant sounds. "They were the most unreliable machines ever made," notes Tim. "Originally, Mark had a part for the solo which spanned the whole section and was just two notes. He played it through a very large amplifier and the Variophon was clearly malfunctioning, jumping between octaves randomly and producing all sorts of internal feedback. We listened back to it and thought, This is too much, and stripped it down to one note. That was the only possible solo that could go there. I was out in the studio tweaking the amplifier and I heard this one note roaring back through the amp and I remember thinking, This is the end. This is as far as we can go. After one note there's no notes. This will be the last album we make."

Interesting that none of the records feature a credit for the Variophon, they might have wanted to keep it a secret as their own special sonic tool.

aahhh thank you, mattt!! seems i might have mixed it up with something else.

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

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

New Held By Trees album Solace is excellent and includes quite a few musicians from latter Talk Talk/Mark Hollis sessions

https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2022/03/held-by-trees-interview-david-joseph-new-album-solace.html

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

Might check it out, but Talk Talk is maybe the worst band ever for new acts being compared to them falling pitifully short of the level

Happiness really isn't easy

solid album

agreed, this is great. thanks for posting, gp!

it's a pretty good album. last track gets a bit wanky in the guitar department and is def. more Dire Straits-y than Talk Talk but I still like it.

yeah definitely prefer the more sparse moments, but hey . . .

Happiness really isn't easy

― imago, Wednesday, May 18, 2022 12:46 AM

About 3/4 of the way into this Mark Hollis biog. Kinda interesting as he comes across poorly a lot of the time, some people say he was an earnest, funny geezer and sometimes a bit moody other reports render him a bully, sullen, a mean drunk.

Can quite easily imagine all those things being true.

He'd get especially sullen when he'd read this thread and see his records referred to as crinkle-cut chips.

Surprisingly this does not seem to be available to buy as an ebook. Physical edition is too $$$ for me ok afraid

To be honest you're not missing much (so far, at least imho) there's not much of a tale to tell it would seem and what is there is told in a boilerplate fashion.

That’s the other thing… if the stir around it was more positive the cost wouldn’t be such an issue.

So glad we got phill brown’s book.

Yeah that and Spirit of Talk Talk seem to be all you need.

There's a lot about Ed Hollis in the earlier part of the book (naturally), he seemed like a really interesting cat and I didn't know that he had such a big hand in Mark's early stages.

What's the Phill Brown book?

https://www.amazon.com/Are-We-Still-Rolling-Recording/dp/0977990311

It's a great overview of Brown's work -- the Robert Palmer stories alone are really revelatory, further underscores just how underrated Palmer was, frankly -- and by the time the Talk Talk/Hollis records start happening you get a sense of someone who has really become a master of his craft working for a band that knows they want to next level further.

Oh, that looks terrific. Thank you!

It will also make you want to pull out John Martyn and Stomu Yamashta

One World and Go specifically

Finding 'A Perfect Silence' pretty enjoyable so far. It's written in a simple, straightforward way but competently--certainly not trying to be poetical or of a piece with the feeling of Talk Talk as an artwork in its own right, but that might be tiresome past essay-length. I supposed I tend to be moderately ignorant of the "histories" of most artists I like, tending to focus on just the music itself, but this is still engaging stuff. I'm just pre-major-commercial-breakthrough now, looking forward to chapters on the last two albums and 'Mark Hollis'.

The introduction raises the question of whether an author should pry into the life of someone who was very private... and just kind of leaves the ethical implications out there (while obviously having determined internally it was kosher to move forward). But thus far, the book mostly covers professional relationships and musical processes, without overly speculating on personal/private/inner life. Maybe it goes into that more, later (for better or worse)?

I just got Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden, remastered, on CD. Previously listened on Spotify on headphones. Now I'm listening on my stereo and my goodness - what a difference! This record needs to fill a room. And it needs to be LOUD. Like, as loud as you can handle.

What a fantastic album.

Yup, one of the first things I played on my new speakers. My downstairs neighbor even texted me saying how stoked he was to hear me playing it... did not expect that.

I love that. What a cool neighbour!

I reckon I got into this hard as a kid because my dad would absolutely blast it in the car. Not only filling a room, but a particularly small one

I have been known to play Laughing Stock at nuclear volumes, the recording comes to life when the instruments are as loud as they were in the studio.

While we're on the subject, a podcast called Hold Onto The Colours has episodes from this year that feature (separately) Phill Brown, Tim Friese-Greene and Ben Wardle.

Thanks for the Phill Brown interview recommendation. Brilliant interview. I really must read the book.

i bought this today purely because of the Tim Friese-Greene production credit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9YiYDG71xw

favourite comment:

sixthtimelucky - 7 years ago
Dreadful then... dreadful now haha :)

Derek Ritchie - 5 years ago
I agree, and I was the drummer!

30p and i still feel like i was robbed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYQzJ6ezdLs