“Despite having been involved from the early compositional stage, Curnow’s contributions only ended up on two tracks: ‘Give It Up’ and ‘I Don’t Believe in You’. “My main contributions on that album were playing recorder in the ensemble, some of the more major synth riffs … and most of what sounds like the guitar solos, which were played on a Jupiter-8 through guitar amps. I think Mark liked the irony of this, as well as it making for a particularly different kind of solo.”
As designated guitarist on the album, McIntosh would feel the pain of this: “One of the banes of my life has been ‘I love the solo you do on “I Don’t Believe in You”, which is, of course, a synthesizer! It’s Ian Curnow with a [Jupiter 8] and a fuzz pedal.“ – From ‘Mark Hollis – A Perfect Silence’
Robbie McIntosh shouldn’t feel too bad, really. The (acoustic) guitar that he does actually play on that track is extremely pretty. The ‘solo’ he is praised for is also wonderful. I am not at all a Pink Floyd fan, however, like every other kiwi teenager in the last 50 years, I spent a fair amount of my high school years listening to Dark Side of the Moon. Ian Curnow’s solo in “I Don’t Believe in You” sounds very Floyd-esque to me. I bet Mark Hollis just loved that.
Me, I just love this video.
https://youtu.be/R-W2m0bYTT4?si=CI7QRvq2oA0vZQPY
The first time I saw it I was struck by how timeless it is. Talk Talk, with their low-key denim-and-shaggy-hair styles look like for all the world like an early nineties indie band. I would even say they sound like an early nineties indie band. I Don’t Believe in You, even with a ‘synth solo’, doesn’t sound like any other pop tune released in 1986. It’s extraordinarily mellow, matching the somnambulant pace of its nearly-namesake, I Believe in You. Outside of the title, the two tracks mirror each other in other ways – they could be written to the same person, at different stages of an addiction. I Don’t Believe in You – never trust a junkie. In both there is that signature churchy organ, and guess-the-instrument trickery – the guitar is a synth, the synth is a choir. Allegedly Mark Hollis put Ian Curnow through all kinds of hell to get the synth sounds he wanted on TCOS, and it was worth it, Ian, so, thank you.