“Hollis was the singer of Talk Talk, and the only solo album he did was a masterpiece. It was pitched at such a low level you had to bend in to hear it, the same way you had to with Terry back at the Savoy. Hollis was equally seductive.
A band backed Hollis, but barely, like a phantom band, with a series of soft jazz chords, while Hollis sang in a quivering croon. He sounded a bit upset, disconsolate, like he was singing himself to sleep after a particularly trying day. I liked his tone of resignation. I liked the fact that the music was so withdrawn, that it had an inverse power beyond the average rocker. His album was concrete evidence to me that my fresh way of working was right, that quietness could be just as effective as bashing. Quietness was like a person stealing into your room.” – Shayne Carter ‘Dead People I Have Known’
The Daily Planet begins like a person stealing into your room. Atonal random scattered woodwind notes. After what seems like longer than you might expect, the woodwind is joined by the rest of the ‘phantom band’ playing a tuneless melange that eventually coalesces into a complex and delightful composition, almost a dubby waltz if you can believe it. I say ‘dubby’ because down low there is a bassoon refrain- is it a bassoon? I am just guessing, what would I know? – whatever it is, I hear Augustus Pablo in that maybe-bassoon, and once I hear that I can’t unhear it, I don’t want to. I also hear the germ of ARB Section 1 in its wandering start, and its lyrical theme has the vibe of an old ReAction tune. The Daily Planet – stolen from Clark Kent or Arthur Lee? I guess Arthur Lee stole it from Clark Kent. Whichever, Mark Hollis still doesn’t like to read the news.
The lyrics are otherwise as obtuse as ever and include difficult words like rape and pain, but Mark Hollis swallows them into silence or turns them into delicate notes, blurring hardness into soft sound. Another instrument in the phantom band. The Daily Planet is a high point in an already stellar songbook – legitimately a masterpiece. It – and the album – being deleted by the record company after 3 months is just so insulting. No wonder Mr Hollis gave the industry the finger.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=X9fiNS8tKHk&si=Ye8uG-1ku4wbjh3q