Talk Talk — Discography Reviewed
Led by the hugely talented Mark Hollis, it took nine years and five albums for Talk Talk to evolve from a new-romantic 80s synth-pop band, to the founding fathers of a whole new genre of melancholic music; one that we know today as 'post-rock'.
Forty years after their debut album was released onto a largely uninterested public, the band's final three studio albums are often held as being among the most-influential and ground-breaking releases of that era.
In this special feature Andy Read revisits and evaluates the complete Talk Talk / Mark Hollis discography in this series Discography Reviewed, which is published in conjunction with a review of a new book that undertakes a song-by-song journey through the Talk Talk legacy, and the post-band careers of its various members.
Andy Read
Talk Talk — The Party's Over
Born on the fourth of January 1955 in Tottenham, London, the musical journey of a certain Mark David Hollis began with a garage rock/punk trio called The Reaction. They released one single, I Can't Resist, and undertook a short UK tour that included a date at London's legendary Marquee club, before breaking up in 1979. An album was near completion and their nascent discography included a song called Talk Talk Talk Talk. This was also released on a Beggars Banquet sampler album called The Streets. Curious and brave listeners can find it on YouTube.
Self-described as "too skint to eat" Hollis had written songs and wanted to record a demo under his own name to get a publishing deal. But first he needed a backing band for his songs.
He found bassist Paul Webb, drummer Lee Harris and keys-man Simon Brenner in a reggae band called Eskalator. With help from Mark's brother Ed, they entered a studio and recorded nine songs. The full-track listing for this demo was: Crying In The Rain, Renée, Mirror Man, Candy, Have You Heard The News, I Keep On Telling You, Carolyn, It's A Question Of Time and Souled Out.
Several of these titles would be re-worked onto the first two Talk Talk albums. The demo is very listenable. The differences between the demo versions and the final album tracks are in some cases minimal (Renée) and in others remarkable (The Police-esque takes on Mirror Man and Have You Seen The News).
I Keep Telling You displays a liking for Roxy Music. It's a Question Of Time retains a punk-rock verve, whilst opener Crying In The Rain could have been reworked into a track from the band's final album. The verse of Souled Out hints at the melancholic edge that was to typify Hollis' vocal approach from then on. You can judge for yourselves, as the whole thing is available on YouTube.
It was during these demo recording sessions that the four musicians gelled into a group, thankfully ditching their original name of 300 Cubs in favour of Talk Talk. With fewer than six live dates to their name, they were signed by EMI. Their debut album was recorded in the two months that straddled the new year of 1982.
With the benefit of more than four decades of hindsight, The Party's Over primarily stands as a product of its time.
The majority of the songs are an easy-on-the-ear three to four minute, single-length compositions. Over-repetition is used to (over-)emphasise the hooks. Fade-outs are the preferred ending. The promo-shoot, with the band in white suits, was clearly targeting the profitable new-romantic audience.
On top of that, EMI brought in Colin Thurston to produce the album. A former engineer for David Bowie, he was better known for producing Duran Duran's first two albums. To emphasise the comparisons, Talk Talk were sent off on tour as support to Duran Duran, then at their commercial peak with the release of 1982's Rio.
Yet knowing what was to follow, if you open your ears to what lies below the glossy surface of the nine tracks, there is plenty of evidence that Hollis was a gifted song-writer and singer waiting to show his unique talent to the world.
And anyway, as synth-pop records from the 80s go, this is a pretty enjoyable listen. The bright, poppy Talk Talk oozes with a confident fizz. Glistening bursts of synth-drama, and an omnipresent funky slap-bass add a funky drive, alongside modish cries of “hey, hey!”
It has some hidden depths. The piano break is clever, while the lyrics cover what will become common themes and an overwhelming sense of melancholic outsiderness. (Note the sardonic album title and edgy cover art).
It's So Serious mirrors Howard Jones. The synths lift the song with an occasional taste of Ultravox.
The opening bass-line of Today is very Duran Duran. The song then offers bits of Visage, Ultravox and more Howard Jones. It was the third single and became the band's first top 20 hit (and their second biggest ever) reaching number 14. It also hit the top 10 in New Zealand.
How many 80s pop songs run to six minutes? Here, the title track is the track that sits apart, and offers the biggest hint at what direction the band will grow into in the future.
The vocal is far more moody, as Hollis donates a genuine vocal tour de force. It's slower paced. The melodies are more subtle and longer-lasting, and there is an abundance of instrumental details to delight repeat spins. One of my favourite Talk Talk songs.
The other (slightly) extended track is the balladic Have You Heard The News?. This also eschews the pop-flair for a slower and more atmospheric approach. The vocals are again very impressive here. It would have been great if this song could have been reworked with the more subtle brush-strokes of later creativity.
Around this, the album's second side struggles to maintain the quality set by side one.
Hate is a thumping but rather forgettable dark-pop track. Mirror Man is a too predictable slice of pop. It was a bizarre first single, and my least favourite song here. Another World begins brightly, but after an abundance of "oohhs" in the previous song, the "oh oh" backing vocals can only evolve into a "woh-woh, oh-oh-oh huh-huh" chorus-line. This has limited shelf-life. With its jazzy piano strides and off-kilter vocals, Candy is out of place, sounding like a left-over from Hollis' days in The Reaction.
As an album, The Party's Over comes from a time when in pop music, the style was more important than the substance. Its second side has too many fillers, simply making up the numbers. However, the first four songs have stood the test of time well, and Mark's vocals and lyrics add a depth that few singers from the period ever matched.
In the UK, the album made a creditable 23 in the charts. It failed to hit the Billboard 100 but did make the top 10 in New Zealand. The track Talk Talk has almost 14 million plays on Spotify alone; so in no way is this a collection of pop songs that has been confined to the history books.
Talk Talk — It's My Life
Album number two is still a synth-pop album but the foundations are being laid for the three genre-defining albums that were to follow.
The principal development was the arrival of Tim Friese-Greene who would become Mark's main collaborator. Tim not only produced and engineered the album but contributed keys and programming.
Original keyboardist Simon Brenner had been kicked out, but the rhythm section of Lee Harris and Paul Webb remained. As was to become Mark's method in the studio, a string of session players were recruited to fill out the sound. Here the credits name three keyboardists, plus guest musicians contributing trumpet, guitar, piano and additional percussion.
Musically, as is the way with all five of the Talk Talk albums, around half of the songs on It's My Life are reflecting the style of its predecessor. The other half is exploring what will become the template for its successor, The Colour Of Spring.
However, this is still very much a synth-pop, new-romantic album of the early 80s.
The opening pair are strong chart contenders, where repetition is employed to give the hooks real earworm possibilities. The evolution from the debut can be heard, where Hollis and Friese-Greene employ a much wider palette of interesting textures and details.
One of two songs to stretch past the six-minute mark, Renée is a wonderful exercise in low-key prog-rock. It forms a tender interlude between the upbeat pop of the first two songs and the worldwide hit that follows. Henry Lowther's trumpet sound is unexpected, yet perfect. The song suffers from over-repetition, but I've always loved the mood and contrast that it injects.
It's My Life has recently passed 100 million Spotify plays. Hard to believe that it was only included when EMI instructed Hollis to write another song as "the single" for the new album. Even harder to believe that when first released, it was only a minor hit in the UK. It took another decade before the song was covered by US rockers No Doubt and became a worldwide smash; bringing millions of new fans to Talk Talk, long after they had split.
This song was however an immediate and big hit elsewhere in Europe. The rich organ adds a spiritual background to the simple synth pattern, over layers of bubbling bass, up-tempo drums, swaying synths and Mark's plaintive vocal about commitment and responsibility.
It is on Tomorrow Started where we get the best indication of the band's direction of travel. The extra instrumentation and the extended intro keep the listener guessing and engaged.
The soothing synths and the bubbling bass are still there, but they offer a contrast to the particularly tortured vocals and the trumpet squawks that sound like a super-stressed bee. The painful guitar strokes remind me of the alien sounds in Jeff Wayne's War Of The Worlds. The abrupt ending is painful.
As with the debut album, the flip-side again suffers from the person in EMI's quality-control department being on holiday. While such tracks on the debut are bearable, the collection of rejected B-sides offered here, will never get a repeat listen chez-moi.
The Last Time is just too much of a contrast after Tomorrow... It's like switching to my mother's play-list on Spotify! Built around a hideous pop-synth motif that would have been rejected by Howard Jones or the Thompson Twins, the song doesn't really fit together. The verse is decent. The chorus is hideous. It seals its fate with a rotten fade out!
On Call In The Night Boy the synths and guitar promise a Joy Division and Ultravox vibe, but the new-wave feel is out of place. The bouncy drums and bobbling bass keep the pop-synth connections. The jazzy piano solo is weird but works. It builds to a great vocal. Somewhat of an experiment I feel. It hints at a direction that thankfully the band never went in again.
The lengthy bongo and pan-pipe opening on Does Caroline Know suggests someone had been listening to Peter Gabriel. But nothing much else happens here, leaving a collision of jungle sound effects and whiny synths, to create probably the worst track ever to bear the Talk Talk name.
Another dubious synth motif opens the final song. Again the drum and bass drive the dynamics. Both the verse and chorus manage to be poor. This song has absolutely no positive attributes. Even those borrowed from other songs are poorly executed.
Based on the popularity of the second single, Such A Shame, the album was particularly successful in Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany where it peaked at numbers 2, 3 and 4, respectively. It had to settle for number 35 in the UK album chart. However, in the United States, it did much better than the debut, just missing the top 40.
The albums It's My Life and The Party's Over are usually put together and dismissed as the band's synth-pop beginnings. That is fair. Both are often slated for having an over-supply of fillers on their second sides. That also is accurate.
However, I am more of a glass-half-full sorta guy.
Thus, I am more than happy to take the better songs from each album, and create one of the best pop-synth records ever made. How about this for a track-listing? Side One: Dum Dum Girl, Such A Shame, Renée, It's My Life, Tomorrow Started; side two: Talk Talk, It's So Serious, Today, The Party's Over. If one takes the gentler moments from these songs, strips away the synths and increases the levels of melancholy to 10, then you would have a pretty good idea of what is to come next.
Talk Talk — The Colour Of Spring
The band's first masterpiece was unveiled after almost a year of six-day-weeks in the studio. It was the beginning of Mark's obsessive, creative recording process; one that would repeatedly take his fellow musicians to breaking point, and similarly test his label's patience with budget over-runs.
The result however was a near-perfect collection of songs, that even after 40 years sounds fresh and somewhat daring.
The Colour Of Spring took Talk Talk to the peak of their commercial success, reaching number 8 in the UK album charts, hitting 58 in the Billboard 100 and reaching number one in the Netherlands. It possesses the perfect balance of commercial and creative. It is one of those rare albums that are equally enjoyable when you play it as background music or if you choose to sit down and give it your full attention.
Sitting down and listening to it properly for the first time in perhaps a decade, the thing that really struck me is that it is a masterfully-constructed album. A smorgasbord of sounds was available to the pair thanks to a troop of 15 guest artists. Many were brought in to paint one unique element onto the canvas envisaged by Mark for each song.
While Lee Harris remained credited as the band's drummer, three additional percussionists were utilised. Three people are credited with guitars, four with various combinations of synth, Mellotron and organ, plus saxophone, harp and harmonica players. The variophone played by Mark and Tim gives a very specific sound on several tracks; an instrument that would feature heavily on future albums.
There are no multipart epic suites, but one would be foolish to dispute that this is a progressive album. Just look at some of the guest musicians. Percussionist Martin Ditcham was a founding member of experimental prog-rock-jazz group Henry Cow. Fellow percussionist Morris Pert had played with Kate Bush, Mike Oldfield and Peter Hammill. Bassist Danny Thompson was the founder of English prog-folk group Pentangle.
Then to add the prog-cherry onto the top of his cake, Hollis recruited one of his idols Steve Winwood. His organ is a defining element on three songs.
You can but be mesmerised by the profound Englishness and the intimate intricacy with which each track is constructed.
It also sounds wonderful and the running order is perfectly paced. In 1986 CDs were the new kids on the block and more expensive. The majority of albums were still being sold in the vinyl format. All five Talk Talk albums were constructed around the LP format, with a clear split between side A and side B.
Of all of their discs, this is one to get on vinyl if you can find it. Partly because it helps with appreciating the flow of the album, but also because it just sounds so damn good when played on a full stereo system. From the opening song you know that whilst this still occupies a sonic space familiar to those who had listened to the first two albums, this time Hollis and Friese-Greene had taken their sound to another level.
The familiarity is held by Mark's lyrical stance (Happiness Is Easy has to be one of the ultimate ironic song titles in rock) and his increasingly plaintive vocals. Throughout each of the eight songs Hollis is straining to squeeze every sinew of emotion from every syllable. It has to be one of the ultimate vocal performances on any album I have ever heard.
Yet gone completely are the parpy synths, bouncy slap-bass and driving drum patterns. Talk Talk had concluded their synth-pop career in just two albums. Instead, the Hollis/Friese-Greene partnership had quickly blossomed, with an approach that for its time was texturally rich and emotionally daring.
At six-and-a-half minutes and with its slow opening, Happiness Is Easy is immediately different. The use of the choir made up of "children from the school of Miss Speake" has never been matched. Lots of acoustic guitar and Steve Winwood's cosy organ provide the defining sound of the mesmerising I Don't Believe in You. Meanwhile, April 5th is just beautiful. The sound is stripped down. Again the organ gives it a unique texture, along with its tambourine percussive-rattle. The minimalistic touches of saxophone are delightful.
That's not to say this album doesn't host a smash hit or two. With 43 million Spotify listens, Life's What You Make It was a top 20 hit across the world. And for that we have the band's label to thank. When they received the original album, they told Hollis and Friese-Greene to go away and write another song. The album, they thought, lacked an obvious single. Talk Talk were still supposed to be a pop band, after all!
The clever pacing of this album is exemplified by Living in Another World injecting beat and groove into proceedings. Despite its seven-minute length, it was the second single. This time the harmonica steals the show for me.
Give It Up takes a different tack with its lovely piano and organ underpinning Mark's soaring vocals. These have a distinct spiritual intent as he urges everyone to "give it up". This song is another beautiful piece with endless, varying textures such as the manner in which the guitar and dobro combine in the short mid-section. The long fade-out is an unsatisfying resolution.
A familiar clap-along beat, and the album's brightest chorus deliver the closing Time Is Time. It seeks to bring an upbeat resolution to the album's discontented lyrical and musical themes. That being said, I am always given the spooks by the unusual currents of the celestial choir. This time it's the purring harmonica that wins me over.
The cheery school recorders offer a clever bookend to the album, mirroring the school choir that opened proceedings; although they go on far too long thanks to another over-stretched fade-out.
Packed with titles that have become classics of the 80s British music scene, The Colour Of Spring is deserving of the warm praise and multi-million sales it has achieved.
However, my stand-out moment is the short song that gets the least airplay. Chameleon Day is pure genius. The woodwind mimicry of the variophone sends shivers across my neck every time. It leads to a minimalistic piano strain alongside Hollis' impossibly-soft vocal. His voice is barely there but its impact is colossal. Then the sudden explosion of emphasis when he sings the lines "Breath on Me" and "Killing Time" gets me every time.
My ears strain to hear the closing variophone. In a way it's too short. In another way, that is its genius. It is also the song that serves us a clear indication of where Talk Talk are heading next.
Talk Talk — Spirit Of Eden
After the multi-million sales generated by The Colour Of Spring, EMI gave Talk Talk creative free-reign and a massive budget to record their fourth album.
Now there may be an element of musical folk-lore to the story that one EMI (Parlophone) executive was brought to tears when he heard the resulting album for the first time (tears of disappointed, rather than of joy). However, with nothing even remotely resembling a hit single across the 41:00 minutes of listening, for the record label "disappointed" would be an understatement of mammoth proportions!
EMI's options to recoup their considerable investment were further limited by the lack of promotion opportunities. Hollis had already announced that the band had played its final live show. He then went one step further into his musical recluse by agreeing to undertake only a handful of perfunctory press interviews.
In the UK, Spirit of Eden made a brief appearance at number 19 in the charts. The first single struggled into the lower reaches of the Top 100. It didn't chart in the US, nor did it break into the Top 10 in previously popular markets such as The Netherlands and Germany.
However, few can deny its place as one of the boldest musical adventures of the 80s, and its resulting influence on musicians from the progressive genre. The artists who have hailed the influence of Talk Talk's final pair of albums include Kate Bush, Tears For Fears, Radiohead, Doves, Elbow, Shearwater, Steven Wilson, Steve Hogarth, Richard Barbieri and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd.
In the space of four albums, Talk Talk had turned from new-romantic pop hopefuls, to artsy, experimental proggish rock minimalists.
The album features a big cast of instruments, including trumpet, Dobro, 12-string guitar, violin, bassoon, clarinet, Mexican bass, double bass, harmonica (played by Mark Feltham) and drums (by Lee Harris).
All these instruments colour the music and are used sparingly and with great care. Nothing upstages the sonically barren landscape of Spirit Of Eden.
Often working in darkness, the musicians recorded many hours of improvised performances that drew on elements of jazz, ambient, blues, classical music and dub. These long-form recordings were then heavily edited and re-arranged into the final collection of six tracks.
As noted before, all the Talk Talk albums were curated as fitting onto two sides of vinyl. Here that structure is taken to its end-point, with Side A featuring three tracks that can only be judged as one song in three parts.
From the opening three minutes of random noises akin to whales in the ocean, you know that this is going to be a challenging listen. The arrival of a lovely drum timbre, amidst delightful guitar and harmonica, suggests there might be musical gold at the end of The Rainbow. And there is some glimmer of a melodic refrain in the delightful mid-section, before the whale-cries reappear as the track segues into Eden.
Along with the band Slint, Talk Talk are often credited with inventing post-rock via these last two albums. I've listened hard to find the connection but fail to understand how either Spirit Of Eden or Laughing Stock are as post-rock as critics often claim.
Eden is the one track that is full of dynamics that offer a build-and-release of tension. The use of trumpet and guitar and harmonica and organ is ground-breaking. The drum beat provides a metronomic repetitiveness.
Hollis' vocals are now less about the lyrics and melody. They exist as part of the sound palette, offering a series of expressive sounds floating painfully over the top.
There is no verse-chorus structure. Where repetition was used to drum the melodic hooks into one's head during the first two Talk Talk albums, here the hooks disappear as soon as they appear; as do all the instrumental refrains. To that end, one could find this a very frustrating listen. Nothing lingers long enough to satisfy one's urge for a melodic hook.
Eden blends into Desire. This offers enhanced dynamic shifts as we jump from almost silence to sudden bursts of distorted, jangly guitars. It is sparse yet heavy. More guitars, more drums, more harmonica, more emotion, more distortion, more repetition in the vocals. I love the bass motif here. An absorbing listen.
Side B begins with silence, but gets to the point much quicker than Side A. If released today, then Inheritance would be classified under the avant-garde-esque Rock In Opposition (RIO) genre of prog. A wind quintet appears from nowhere to bring a taste of modern classical music. A sound enhanced by the discordant keys. Or is it a distorted horn section? Only the vocals keep it accessible.
The song I Believe In You was recorded for The Colour Of Spring with the title Snow In Berlin. It was chosen as the most accessible track here, by being released as the only single (in an edited format). Its achingly-beautiful vocal melodies and the fleeting appearance of a boys choir at the end, provide the closest link to the band's previous album.
I also enjoy the hymn-like, Floydian-feel to Wealth, with its church-like organ and almost spiritual emphasis to the vocals when Hollis calls for someone, anyone to "Take my freedom". I always feel that I should mutter "Amen" at the end!
Thus, with Spirit of Eden, Talk Talk had completed their transition from a band riding the Top 40 charts on the populist success of the new-romantic era, to a band with the self-confidence and focus to release one of the most original albums from the 1980s.
It's a record that oozes with atmosphere and craftsmanship and daring. It's not an easy listen. It requires one's solitary focus and an open mind. However, whenever I take the time to sit down and listen to this album as one whole piece of music, I find an enduring satisfaction to its calm intensity.
More than three decades after the release of Sprit Of Eden, Hollis and Talk Talk deserve to be praised as artists who did not cave in to the pressures of commercial interests; who instead sought to push their art into new and challenging niches.
Talk Talk — Laughing Stock
My own Talk Talk adventure began at this point.
My friends and I had just passed our driving tests. With our new-found licence-to-roam folded neatly and placed in the glove compartment, we took to the road for a summer holiday on a remote Scottish island called Gigha.
One evening, some local fisherman had kindly given us lobsters to cook for dinner. Suitably stuffed, I plonked myself in front of the television where the selected TV channel was broadcasting a live concert. It was Talk Talk. Having only ever heard their hit singles, they sounded far more interesting than I had expected.
Intrigued, when I returned home, I bought their latest album entitled Laughing Stock.
That live show on the TV was probably their Live In Monteray set, which covered songs from their first three albums. This new album sounded nothing like that. I'm not sure if I even made it to the end. It sat on my CD shelf, untouched, until I revisited Talk Talk with a more musically open mind some 20 years later.
Fans and critics frequently cite this album as a classic and the highlight from the Talk Talk oeuvre. Even with a more nuanced ear, I still struggle to appreciate its alleged brilliance.
At this point in the Talk Talk story, bassist Paul Webb had left the band, making it a nominal three-piece.
The recording took seven months, with Mark and Tim only leaving the studio to sleep. It followed the same pattern as before but the process was more extreme. A total of 50 musicians were actually invited to contribute. In the studio they were asked to improvise around a theme. The studio was dark apart from on-the-wall projections.
Once the recording had been completed, Mark and Tim utilised and technique known as xenochrony, where fragments of these endless improvisations were cut and pasted into a completely different context to form the six tracks. It is a technique best-known for its use by Frank Zappa on his rock opera Joe's Garage.
It took another five months to edit these recordings. Of the 50 guest musicians who took part in the studio sessions, only 18 had their efforts utilised, along with an acknowledgement on the album sleeve.
It was again released on PolyGram's jazz sub-label Verve Records.
The majority of tracks are based around a repeated drum groove. There is clear inspiration from 20th-century classical music, and of jazz from the late fifties and sixties. There is a low-fi feel, with more guitar and an intentionally abrasive edge. There is a lot of silence. It is definitely setting out to push boundaries. It warrants credit for that.
Hollis' vocals are even more withdrawn and personal than before. For me, it has become all too morose. The words are indecipherable; his voice has become merely an ongoing utterance of sounds and emotion.
I am blocked by the lack of any fluidity or melodic flow to the album. The lyrics and melodies are merely a collection of fractured and isolated thoughts. Occasionally something promising comes along. Then it is snatched away before you've absorbed it.
As on previous albums, the track-listing is designed for the vinyl format. Side A is basically one long song in three parts. The first, Myrrhman, is glacial in its development of half of a musical idea; one that begins with 15 seconds of amplifier hiss!
The second track, Ascension Day, is a top 40 hit in comparison. With its often brash exchanges of dynamic highs and lows, if there is one track here that could support the claim that this is the album that inspired a whole generation of quiet/loud post-rockers, then Ascension Day is it.
After a keys/organ-led intro, the drum sound immediately irritates. It sounds like someone hitting a biscuit tin with a garden cane (it is of course quite likely that that is exactly what it is). There is an extended solo that sounds like a dentist's drill. The monotonous drum clangs away. The sudden cut-off at the end is perpetually annoying.
I fail to find one endearing point to these opening three tracks.
If you still have the will, and flip this over to side B, then you will find a vocal and guitar that is intriguing, before a deluge of dissonant sounds decline into a swaying, ambient vibe.
New Grass is either a song where nothing much happens or the most beautiful piece of music you have ever heard. Over its near-ten-minute existence, it's an exercise in repetition with minute variations. If you enter a meditative state, then I can appreciate how it can be a very beautiful piece of music. It is far and away the best track on the album.
The band should have ended their career there, but instead we get Runeii, which somehow manages to become even more minimalistic. It sounds like the band is past caring. I most certainly am.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the lovely cover art of all five albums in the Talk Talk discography. All were designed by English visual artist James Marsh. The intention of Hollis was for that to give a common visual style to all of their releases. Marsh's cover for Laughing Stock is my favourite of the five.
After the album was finished, the three remaining members just walked away from Talk Talk and each other. Mark disappeared from the music scene for seven years, to concentrate on being a father and family man.
Laughing Stock made a fleeting appearance at number 26 in the UK album charts, before disappearing forever. It failed to make the US charts. Nor did it break through the top 50 barrier in The Netherlands or Germany. No official singles or music videos were released to promote the album.
It tends to attract extreme responses. Stylus magazine named it the greatest post-rock album ever. PolyGram deleted it from their catalogues a few months after its release.
Mark Hollis — Mark Hollis
Emerging six-and-a-half years after the release of Laughing Stock, Mark Hollis is the only solo album by the Talk Talk frontman. It was released on Polydor Records on 26 January 1998, and saw the completion of the two-album contract that he had signed with the label, along with Laughing Stock.
It was initially to be titled Mountains Of The Moon and released under the Talk Talk name (early promotional CD-Rs hold the artist's name as Talk Talk).
With no other Talk Talk band members involved, it was decided to release it as a solo album. This move was signalled with a distinct change in the cover art concept. Instead of the illustrations by James Marsh, that had tied the five Talk Talk albums together, this time Hollis selected a cover photo. Taken by Stephen Lovell-Davis, it starkly depicts Easter bread from southern Italy, designed to resemble the lamb of god.
Musically the album continues the direction of Talk Talk's sound in a minimal, sparse, acoustic style.
It also continues the use of a cacophony of guests. The guest list here includes some familiar names (Mark Feltham on harmonica and Henry Lowther on trumpet) plus clarinet, bassoon, flute, harmonium and cor anglais. The album was produced by Hollis and engineered by Phil Brown, who also did Laughing Stock.
It's one of those albums that I listen to once in a while when seeking something of a meditative, thoughtful nature. It works for me as background music but also something to really listen to and absorb. It is more of a mood album though, as little leaves a lasting impression.
Hollis' vocals are again more about texture. The lyrics are minimal and the words are barely decipherable.
The modern classical influences also persist, as does the use of space within an ambient, meditative framework. It is nowhere near as jarring and edgy as Laughing Stock.
There is a gentle introduction with the voice and piano of The Colour Of Spring. On Watershed the harmonium and clarinet are effective above a bluesy vibe. The Gift provides a bit more colour and tempo.
A Life (1895 - 1915) is often described as the album's centrepiece. It refers to Roland Leighton, a British soldier and poet who was the fiancé of Vera Brittain, a nurse, writer, feminist and pacifist at the time of his death in World War I.
Through a variety of styles, tempi, and instrumentation, it seeks to capture the ever-changing emotions of his short life; from the ebulliant patriotism, to the disillusionment with the war. It mostly succeeds.
The final tree tracks leave little in the way of a lasting impression.
Following the release of the album, Hollis largely retired from the recording industry. He died, aged 64, in February 2019.