Mark Hollis takes off the sticker from his first, self-titled solo CD at the beginning of the interview, which reads ‘formerly of Talk Talk’ as a recommendation. Then the humble Englishman explains why he does that. “Because the artwork looks better then, not because I distance myself from my past.” Still, we would like to talk about the past for a while. Because if someone like Mark Hollis doesn’t release a record for seven years, then something must be wrong. Not true? “No, not necessarily. I like to make music, but I don’t always feel the need to record it. I’ve written a number of compositions for woodwinds in recent years, just because I found it an interesting challenge. Every record that I record, I have the feeling that it could be the last. Until The Color Of Spring I always had to make concessions with Talk Talk. Only from Spirit Of Eden did I have total freedom to do whatever I wanted .. The same goes for Laughing Stock and this new CD.
If I decide to make another CD, I have to have a good reason for it. I need time to find out to what extent that new record differs from its predecessor so that it has a right to exist.” However, most artists have a contract stating that they have to make a new CD every few years. How did Mark Hollis get that coveted freedom to do whatever he wants? “The success of The Color Of Spring has ensured that. As a result, I have had hardly any contact with record companies for the past twelve years. That is a luxury position. I am treated the way one treats writers. As long as I have nothing to say, I don’t have to say anything. I do have a contract, but only when I requested an advance for this record, I committed myself to actually make it. But then I had already written the entire album and so I knew what I wanted. The arrangements were finished. I knew it was going to be a fully acoustic record. And I knew where, how and with whom I was going to record. So the basis was fixed, but when recording the musicians were given the freedom to interpret the material in their own way. The music had to sound relaxed, to the point of improvisation.” As you can hear on the rightly acclaimed CD, Mark Hollis’ music is becoming more and more subdued and smaller. Can he see that process continue? “Yes. at the moment I can’t imagine making another CD like this one. I can imagine making an instrumental record or an album for all piano. This album is the next step towards total silence, but that doesn’t mean that silence is more important than music or that I will ever stop making music. Music respects silence, silence sets the tempo of the music and music gives me a reason to break the silence.