Album cover to Mark Hollis' solo album

meh?? Laughing Stock Revisited perhaps, but beautifully and amazingly revisited IMO.

does anyone else think his voice has a unique quality? if he were an orchestral intrument he would be an oboe or a clarinet.

it is a very nice album

;-)

see also: morton feldman

Word. I'm also impressed by the fact that it was recorded with one stereo mic -- Talk Talk always did nail the concept.

Best album of 1998?

It is a wonderful record, but I can't fathom how it took six years to make: it sounds so immediate, as if it was recorded in a week. Perhaps he then spent 6 years removing stuff, until just that skeleton remained.

The album is seasoned with weeping woodwind interruptions, testimony to Hollis's exploratory listening habits over the intervening years since 1991. "There's so much out there to listen to, and that takes all my time. For me, the best of that earlier bunch of composers that I've become aware of was Ravel, who I only ever knew for the Bolero, that hideous piece of work - and yet you've got stuff like his String Quartet, also his music for poems by Stephan Mallarmé, which are just a fantastic bit of writing and arranging. So it's like meandering along these little avenues and listening to stuff. That's how it works for me." Nothing on the album is electrified. "The minute you work with just acoustic instruments, by virtue of the fact that they've already existed for hundreds of years, they can't date. When you're looking at writing music, the ideal must be: I'd like to make music that can exist outside the timeframe. So your biggest chance of doing that, I guess, is working with instruments that by their nature don't exist in a time period. So, no syndrums - great as they were ..."

I think I ultimately like this record more than 'Spirit of Eden' (which I like more than 'Laughing Stock'). Though I love them all. For a long time, this record was almost like a secret to me (before I knew of things like ILM etc.). I was amazed to see it as a "featured record" on a display at the Oxford street (I think) HMV in London. Or maybe it was a Tower.

Revive, as reading King Creosole's comments that SoE has never been bettered has me finally digging back into MH/TT after a decade of struggling to reconcile my own feelings about this music with its rediscovery amongst music crit circles.

For me, I struggle with how good "The Colour of Spring" is as an opener versus the rest of this record, which feels to me like a very self conscious attempt to further go down the rabbit hole of SoE and LS, the same sureness of direction, but without the inspiration, melodies or sense of progression.

This may sound insipid but I think I would've preferred a record of solo piano songs.

This may sound insipid but I think I would've preferred a record of solo piano songs.

You should get ahold of Paul Buchanan's Mid Air if you want to get close to an MH solo piano songs record!

Thanks -- tho what I had in mind was less the sound of a Mark Hollis solo piano record than the continuum of the Talk Talk the pop band to Hollis doing a record of plaintive piano sketches. That would have been a good deal bolder to me than a further abstraction of the Talk Talk sound -- and probably a more visceral listen as well.

One of the things that separates latter TT from at least half of MH is the strong sense of melodic direction. For all his professed love for the likes of Feldman, etc. by the late 90s, 60s British soul was never that far in Hollis' rearview. To me, it's equally as telling that Steve Winwood was on CoS as, say, Danny Thompson.

The other difference is the lack of feedback squall, which makes sense given that Tim Friese-Green was largely responsible for that sound on Laughing Stock and split with Hollis after.

Not sure if it was ever really in the cards, but "The Colour of Spring" at least suggests this sort of direction may have been rattling around Hollis' brain at some point.

this album is great. colour of spring is great. spirit of eden is great. laughing stock is great. it's my life is great. the party's over is great. talk talk EP by talk talk featuring the song talk talk is great.

otm otm otm

so otm

Why did/do you have to "reconcile [your] own feelings about this music with its rediscovery amongst music crit circles"?

For the record, I think this is a record that's easier to talk about than love. Or even listen to all that often. Agree totally that the opener towers above pretty much everything else. This is a beautiful thing, but I don't really care about it all that much, I guess.

I have some issues with SoE and many with LS but this record is untouchable

What are your issues with SoE and LS?

Mostly LS, oh god, I've typed about it elsewhere and so unconvincingly

Basically I can't deny that the album is exceptionally beautiful, but I have problems with the self-indulgent process that was required to arrive at the final product. "We will tap every object in the studio with every possible mic placement until we find a new and surprising sound. This will cost thousands upon thousands of dollars."

Having worked with so many clients, both in music and film, who have this "expensive experimentation" process, where they putter around with a staff to record every possible configuration of every possible instrument, trying to make lightning strike, I can't help but hear Laughing Stock as a kind of beginning of the end. Pre-production has gone out the window and instead people enter the studio with no songs and a big budget. That's all.

That's a fair enough criticism. The music that comes out of the other end of that process I find very beautiful, so I don't agree particularly, but I can see your point.

Yeah, it's like the Blue Nile album. I mean, I like it (Hats, particularly), but surely they could have done it in a week, yeah?

My understanding of the studio work was that the band mostly recorded a bunch of stuff then steadily eroded and shaped what they had into what was released, which isn't terribly different from what Teo Macero did or Eno did.

not everyone is talk talk. it was totally worth the money to end up with laughing stock. and people have been going into the studio with lots of money and no songs for a long time. its seriously still one of the greatest sounding CDs i own. its some sort of gold standard of sound/production. its amazing. and it totally spoils me as far as other CDs go. colour of spring was one of the first CDs i ever bought/heard. that kinda spoiled me too. i couldn't understand why more CDs couldn't sound like that.

i don't think that most people DO spend ages and years in the studio. i think more people should actually spend more time on their sound. and they mostly don't. there are big money exceptions, but with digital recording you can do stuff pretty quick.

Yeah, the days of spending six months or a year on an album are probably done. People like Peter Gabriel I think are just massively distracted.

in that keith richards book it was so funny to read how unprepared they would be going in to record. they would sometimes have nothing. some riffs. they made it work. it helps if you are really talented and good at what you do.

but for real, people have always wasted time making stuff. i take it case by case. so many thousands of amazing albums were made in 3 hours or less. some took months. you never know what will work best for people.

Yeah, the days of spending six months or a year on an album are probably done. People like Peter Gabriel I think are just massively distracted.

Whoa that is completely to the contrary!

Like most things I feel like talking about re: music there is a terrible amount of self-indictment involved, *shrug*. I've spent days making sample banks of steel drums for 30-second snippets, tracked 50-tracks of overdubbed strings for film demos, urged clients to re-sing things for a fourth or fifth time, etc. I think I just idolize people like Deerhunter or Nina Nastasia who practice, write it out, find a great room and do it in a week, and wish me and many people I know had that ability to economize. I've three times in my life been eating dinner with a client and the session is going slowly and they put on Laughing Stock over dinner and I'm like O_o let's not indulge our indulgence, can we put on In A Silent Way instead

wait don't you make more money if people take a long time in the studio?

you should encourage them to take things slow.

In theory yes. In practice no. And I prioritize "good product" and "good use of time" over personal profit. As Van Dyke Parks says, "time is the currency of love"

people are slower in general now though. in the 50's people would record a single with full big band orchestra and vocals and vocal choruses and tricky charts/arrangements and do it an hour? that's probably not even possible now. or maybe it is, what do i know. but, yeah, spending weeks and weeks on some four piece indie rock band's record seems extreme. they could just bash it out in a day. probably sound cool. talk talk were not whatever deerhunter is though. i don't really know what deerhunter is, but i know they are not talk talk.

Is in a silent way actually a good example to the contrary?

xpost That prolly doesn't happen as much anymore because a) the musicians aren't as insanely talented as some of those cats (Wrecking Crew wt al) or b) haven't spent months and months playing clubs with poor PAs before finally getting to a studio with four-tracks requiring virtually live takes of everything a la the Beatles. Multi-tracking slowed things down considerably later on, but with digital taking a long time doesn't cost nearly as much, but at the same time it expedites things considerably.

In that making of Rumours doc, they explain how the original tape was poorly calibrated, so they took the master tapes with the completed I think rhythm tracks to a different studio - Miami? - and then copied them over to another tape, mixing as they went in real time!

The model these days is people like Gaga and Rihanna recording in porta-studios between gigs on tour.

Wow, my post reads like it was edited together in post out of tons of copy.

i heard nice indie rock CDs last week! i couldn't believe it. i mean they were recorded nicely and the band is probably fans of talk talk. but they were pretty enough that i actually took them home. SHEARWATER. definitely don't sound like they were recorded in a day. i was impressed. kind of an Elbow vibe with the vocals but they don't bug me too much. i want to listen to them more. so rare to hear a rock band that even approaches an album like laughing stock. sound-wise, atmosphere-wise, vibe-wise. its a really hard place to get to.

Yeah, that last Shearwater album was nice. Great album cover, too!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b8/Shearwater_-_Animal_Joy.jpg/220px-Shearwater_-_Animal_Joy.jpg

BTW, my favorite studio technique that I wish more bands would (could) indulge is what Eno did early in his career. He would sketch out his song idea and then gather a group of musicians to plow through it. Then another day he would give the same sketch to a different group of musicians and let them plow through it. Then he would cull through both takes and pull some bass from here, some drums from there, some guitars from both, etc. Or possibly just have both "bands" playing at once, which is likely what he did for a song like "Here Come the Warm Jets."

That's awesome, yeah.

Oh, I haven't heard that Shearwater CD and I'll def check it out

I love that Shearwater album too but I wouldn't say it's coming from the same place as TT/MH.

i haven't actually heard that last one. i got Rook, Palo Alto, and the Golden Archipelago. all very nicely packaged. courtesy of an ILXOR who was shedding CDs! we'll see if i go back in time and listen to Okkervil River too. i don't want to push my luck.

yeah it was just a vibe on one of the ones i listened to. i could tell that these people had listened to talk talk. just a feeling i got. but they are different things.

oh right, sure, that makes sense then. Animal Joy was a lot rockier than the earlier ones. I can see where you're coming from with regards to the earlier ones.

I personally prefer Okkervil River to Shearwater, their last one I Am Very Far was great

Shearwater singer def. gets the Hollis vibe down.

Only Okkervil I think I've heard is .. "Stage Names?"

Yeah that one's a cracker as well, Meiburg (SW singer) was still in OR at that time but wasn't writing for them afaik.

Okkervil is one of those bands that was just sort of around and then suddenly got really good iirc - Black Sheep Boys, Stage Names - and then despite staying really good, a lot of that wave of new fans sort of inexplicably moved on. At least that's what it seems like.

Why did/do you have to "reconcile your own feelings about this music with its rediscovery amongst music crit circles"?

Because as utterly amazing as SoE/LS are, the level of praise they got, obsession they sparked and omnipresence on the likes or ILM felt like overkill and made me not want to listen. I needed to put them away for awhile. Basically, aliens could descend upon the earth and I'd get tired of reading about them on Facebook.

Yeah, the days of spending six months or a year on an album are probably done. People like Peter Gabriel I think are just massively distracted.

Whoa that is completely to the contrary!

I'd agree. It's easier to get things to market nowadays but the breakdown between studio and home time has made it easier to work on projects --not complete them.

BTW, my favorite studio technique that I wish more bands would (could) indulge is what Eno did early in his career. He would sketch out his song idea and then gather a group of musicians to plow through it. Then another day he would give the same sketch to a different group of musicians and let them plow through it. Then he would cull through both takes and pull some bass from here, some drums from there, some guitars from both, etc. Or possibly just have both "bands" playing at once, which is likely what he did for a song like "Here Come the Warm Jets."

I've never heard this I don't think. Where did you, Josh?

I'm relatively new to Talk Talk and bought Laughing Stock and the Hollis solo LP as reissues last year. I loved them both and span them loads and loads and I'm still not tired of them. I bought Spirit Of Eden recently and I've played that lots but just can't seem to get it.

I've never heard this I don't think. Where did you, Josh?

It's in the (now hard to find?) More Dark Than Shark book.

BTW, I wasn't talking about taking your time in some home studio on a record, I'm talking about working on the clock.

Because as utterly amazing as SoE/LS are, the level of praise they got, obsession they sparked and omnipresence on the likes or ILM felt like overkill and made me not want to listen.

See no one cared until the second half of the nineties so I'm still just joyed that people want to talk about these albums!

yeah and remember most people on earth have never heard them. like, 99.97% of the earth.

I like the care that they took in the new repressing, it sounds great