Tag: Talk Talk

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CMJ 1998

First Person
Laughing Stock (Polydor)

I remember joking once that Talk Talk was “the poor man’s Simple Minds.” 1991’s Laughing Stock, however, blew away my prejudices about the band and became a resident of my list of favorite albums. Mark Hollis (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Tim Friese-Greene (keyboards, production) and Lee Harris (drums) labored on Laughing Stock for seven months with a cast of violinists, cellists, horn players and one harmonica player. Their work produced a masterful album of improvisation, spontaneity and subtle artistry. Its spacious sound and rich feel doesn’t come from digital or studio effects, but from natural echo and reverb nurtured by judicious mic placement in London’s mammoth Wessex Studios. The jazz-influenced drumming of Harris (who later formed O’rang with ex-Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb) provides ample freedom for the fluttering keyboard, guitar and strings to wander and create atmosphere. The drumming also wanders to make its own magic, as on the opener “Myrrhman” where the sounds of sticks and skins scatter about. Hollis said he wanted it to feel like Coltrane’s “In A Sentimental Mood” in which he thought it sounded like ‘Trane drummer Elvin Jones was setting up his kit. The ambling, open-ended feel of “Myrrhman” prepares you for “Ascension Day” in which Hollis spills out elegant, phonetic phrasings (“Double deal a season wrapt too lax to laps so soon”), his voice barely rising above the instruments. The lyrics may make little sense, but the words are paramount, as Hollis shapes consonants and vowels into art. The album bubbles to a peak on “After The Flood” where Hollis and Friese-Greene bleat for a minute on saxes a half note apart. That brash, unnerving solo reveals the free-jazz aesthetic that Talk Talk must’ve had in mind for those seven months. I’d be surprised if the spontaneous aesthetic of Laughing Stock wasn’t behind some work by Portishead, Spacemen 3, Laika and others in this decade. I’d be even more surprised if the album didn’t continue to inspire innovators in the next 10 years. — Steve Ciabattoni
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First Person is a weekly column in which individual CMJ editors sound off about music and artists, both new and old, that are near and dear to their hearts.

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Stuart Stawman Part Three

 

OK, so I’ll paste the SOE instalment below. I would have sent it sooner but I was trying to write something about the ‘edgy’ humour that infused the sessions and I failed, it’s too tricky and loaded to try and describe so I’ll leave it out. I can do a very short follow up on Laughing Stock if you like, but I’d actually left Wessex when that was recorded so I don’t imagine I’ll get much past a paragraph, maybe two; ‘the view from the outside’. Please correct any typos if you spot any. Thanks!

Spirit of Eden

The first tell-tale sign that planet Talk Talk was now installed in Studio 1 was the sight of the two ‘4-wheel drives’ parked next to each other outside the reception of Wessex Studios, one being Tim’s, the other Mark’s. Joyce the studio manager had previously told me of Tim’s adventures driving a complete circuit of Africa in his Toyota Land Cruiser. Unfortunately, I can’t remember with confidence which species of animal it was that had surrounded his vehicle one night while he slept on the roof. But I do remember Tim telling me about how Toyota had provided him with a brand-new engine at the halfway mark of his trip.

I didn’t work consistently on Spirit of Eden as I was chief engineer at Wessex and was generally working on other projects but every now and then I was called on to stand in for a few days. There wasn’t a great deal for me to do, the core team that comprised the band, Tim Friese-Green and Phill Brown was a well-oiled machine so, as mentioned previously, I was left to enjoy a fly-on-the-wall view of the album unfolding over time. It soon became very clear that this was going to be a VERY different album to Colours of Spring

The control room and recording room of Studio 1 did not have any windows so the entire recording process took place divorced from sunlight. Apart from Phill making trips to the maintenance room upstairs none of my memories of the others are in daylight! Sometimes all the lights were on full and the place was as indeed as bright as day, while at other times the place was thrown into darkness save for a few coloured spotlights and the infamous oil wheel. But these shifting atmospheres had no relationship to the actual time of day outside. As has been well-documented, they spent the best part of a year living in this ‘altered reality’.

The studio’s Bösendorfer grand piano and Hammond Organ with Leslie cabinet had been joined by two harmoniums for the sessions. I became fascinated by the fluid way in which Mark and Tim would take it in turns at the keyboards trying to work out what a particular part should be. There was no possessiveness at all over who would eventually record the part, everything was done in the service of the song. In fact, I think there were probably some parts that combined both of their playing. It was the same with guitar parts, either one might try out ideas and record a part.

Alla asked me for any memories of the recording process. Phill Brown, who is the star witness for all things Talk Talk, captures the nuts and bolts of their process brilliantly in his book ‘Are We Still Rolling?’ For example, the way they would record several takes of a guest musician and cherry-pick the choice sound bytes, which might be one note or the sound of someone tripping over a guitar lead, and erase the rest. Sometimes they erased it all.

If it hasn’t already been covered elsewhere I think the bit that I can bring to the conversation is my recall of what I think we can refer to as their ‘Give It Back’ principle.

If something they were recording started to remind them of another artist, Tim would adopt a shrill, high-pitched voice (think Monty Python doing the Piston Engine sketch) and yell out that they should ‘give it back’ to whoever the artist was.

“Give it back to Miles Davis!!”

“Give it back to Aretha Franklin!!”

“Give it back to The Andrews Sisters!!”

The list was long.

Sometimes the references were made tongue-in-cheek, and at other times they were entirely literal. Mark and Tim shared a dogged insistence on not being reminded of other people’s work. It’s a fine line to walk, if the principle is applied to its extreme there is a danger of ending up with silence. But, applied as a general attitude, it beautifully encapsulates their insistence on breaking new ground and defining their own sound. Creating something genuinely ‘new’.

In Phill’s book he recalls the time they first recorded a choir on the track ‘I Believe In You’. I wasn’t working with them that day, but I happened to be upstairs near the large red wooden door that lead to the recording room of Studio 1. I could hear the choir and was transfixed. I very carefully opened the door a few millimetres so that I could hear them better. Because I was upstairs I couldn’t hear the backing track that was being played in the control room and through the headphones of the choir. I was just hearing an ‘a Cappella performance of a choir singing ‘How long, spirit of illusion?’ in an old church hall. The hair was standing up on my arms. It was beautiful.

I was down to work with Talk Talk the next day and Phill and I were in the control room discussing how wonderful the choir had been when Mark and Tim arrived and directed Phill to erase it! Phill remembers Mark saying “It sounds too good – like The Cliff Adams Singers.”

My memory from that day is of Tim shrieking “Give it back to the King Singers!!”

This incident really consolidated something for me around ‘strength of conviction’. It doesn’t matter how long it takes to record a particular part, or even a whole section of a song. In many respects, it’s also best (though not always possible!) if it doesn’t matter how much it cost It doesn’t even matter how great it is! If it doesn’t fit the overall project, you have to get rid of it. I often think of that time as I hit delete . .

And the second choir they recorded for that track was even better.

It would have been around that time that Kate Bush released her first single since her epic album ‘Hounds of Love’. I can remember that we’d somehow got hold of a pre-release copy and played it for the first time through the main monitors in the control room. I can still remember the bated breath of a room full of respect for Kate Bush as the church bells that open the track ’Sensual World’ started playing.

Speaking of female musical icons, there are two in my world; Kate and Joni. So I was extremely pleased to be parked in fly-on-the-wall mode on the couch toward the back of the control room the day they had Larry Klein (Joni Mitchell’s husband) come in to do bass overdubs. The conversation was polite, I remember him likening his current home in California to a French vineyard, and then they got down to the business of working out some bass parts. The session was wrapped up and he left. I think his parts were deleted before he’d been gone an hour. He was clearly an excellent musician, but his parts didn’t fit what they were looking for.

They gave him back to Joni Mitchell.

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Stuart Stawman‘s Talk Talk memories Part 1

 

“When Talk Talk worked at Wessex they brought their own engineer, the mighty Phill Brown who I had already known for some time (check out his autobiography ‘Are We Still Rolling?’). So all they really required from the studio was someone to ‘babysit’ their sessions in case they needed anything technical setting up from time to time. That means, in effect, when I worked on the Spirit of Eden sessions my job was literally to be a fly-on-the-wall, just sitting at the back of the room watching.

There was one other job. Occasionally they needed me to be the 4th player so that the band could play doubles table tennis in the studio when Phil and Tim Friese-Greene were busy in the control room.

I remember the first day I worked with them on Spirit (I had done a few days at the very end of COS) they were doing bass overdubs. Mark Hollis and Lee Harris set off some kind of smoke bomb/machine device behind Paul Webb ‘for a laugh’ while he was recording. That set the tone for the edgy humour I would watch unfold over the coming year.

My fondest memory is of seeing percussionist Martin Ditcham asked if he had anything ‘more unusual’ than his usual instruments. He proceeded to surround himself on the floor with all sorts of strange objects, many of them were kid’s toys. Mark and Tim got very excited when he started ‘playing’ a large mortar and pestle on the intro of ‘The Rainbow’. He scrapes it very slowly across the first couple of minutes and then you hear him speed up an about 1:52. I didn’t get it at first but I can’t imagine that track without it now, it sounds like the dawn of time.

I also remember the many days that Mark spent playing that guitar part that comes in straight after. He seemed to want a perfect blend of playing it ‘roughly’ and ‘perfectly’. At the time I was working with another band in Studio 2. The guitarist of that band could hear Mark’s playing, we all could, and worked the part out himself. He then rang Studio 1 offering to play it for them! They didn’t accept his offer and, a couple of days later, they had what they wanted on tape.”

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Stuart Stawman’s Talk Talk memories Part 2

“The first time I worked with Talk Talk and Tim Friese-Greene was when I was asked to fill in as tape-op on the last day of recording for Colour of Spring, which must have been late 1985. I can’t remember who the engineer was, or even if there was one that day, I have a feeling someone was ill or unavailable and Tim was doing it himself. And, to be honest, all I knew about the band at that stage was their single Talk Talk from a few years earlier.
They were recording the piano for ‘Life’s What You Make It’ and I immediately fell in love with the track. However, Mark and Tim were not finding a happy place with the groove of the piano against the drums. Mark was playing on the studio’s Bösendorfer Grand and they were both lost in thought. I don’t think they’d even registered my arrival on the session. I decided to pipe up and suggested that they use the sampling function of the AMS DMX Delay unit to lock the piano in with the bass drum. Tim stared at me (and seemingly straight through me!) for what seemed like minutes and then suddenly snapped out of it, declaring “Let’s try that!” And that’s how the piano groove was finalised.
Once that was done, Mark said he’d go and play the piano solo (2:19 – 2:36) and wandered off into the studio. He played it once, said something like “Yeah, that’ll do,” and came back into the control room.
It is a beautifully simple, even child-like solo but, with the exception of a saxophone solo I’d once recorded with Mel Collins, it was the only time I saw anyone record anything, let alone a solo, in a single take.
And this was not something I would ever see Talk Talk do again!
Towards the end of that day Mark and Tim needed to check through all the other songs on the album to make sure they had everything recorded.
So imagine this; my job was to keep changing the 24-track tape reels over for the next song and then watch Tim bring up the faders on the desk. We were listening to the whole of ‘Colour of Spring’ for the first time.
The ‘tape op’ would normally sit diligently next to the remote control of the tape machine but after I changed each reel I would go and stand on the speaker side of the desk in between the speakers so I could get the full stereo effect as I watched Tim creating a mix of the next song.
The room was full of smiles. I particularly remember being ‘introduced’ to Mark’s sparkling grin for the first time. The guys were on a (totally natural) high, enjoying the fruits of their work. Everyone in the room knew this was special.
They’d just recorded a classic album.”

 

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Music and Media Sept 21 1991 – Laughing Stock

On September 16, Talk Talk will release their fifth studio album, “Laughing Stock,” on the Verve label through Polydor. This label debut sees them steering away from pop music’s beaten path even more than their previous efforts on Parlophone.

Following four successful studio albums, EMI released the Talk Talk “best of” album, “Natural History” in 1990, which reached no. 13 in European Top 100 Albums. “History Revisited – The Remixes” was next causing for contractual confusion between the band’s management and EMI. Now Talk Talk are back with a new record deal on Polydor.
Says their manager Keith Aspden, “The relationship with a record company is as good as your contract. I’m sure Polydor knows what they have.”
The new six-track album, “Laughing Stock”, recorded at Wessex Studios/London, threads the fine line between experimental pop and new age, evoking images from Robert Wyatt, indeed even early Soft Machine, to Roxy Music and David Sylvian. Once again, the compositions are written by main man Mark Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene, and the talents of harmonica player Mark Feltham are featured among the many guest musicians.
“I don’t even dare to try to describe the music”, says Aspden. “It draws influences from a wide variety; it’s much bigger than a pop record. You really need to take the time to appreciate its full impact.”
Aspden believes the album cannot be pigeon-holed. “It’s not a record that fits radio formats. The album is an entity and you cannot pull anything off it.”
With sparse arrangements, the dynamics range from the softly whispered to the trashy. The track “Ascension Day” is a prime example of this, with the vocals sometimes being mere brush strokes in the musical tapestry, added almost like afterthoughts, as on the track “Runeii”. The nervous use of the drum cymbals gives an extra, almost jazzy rhythmic dimension to the music.
“Laughing Stock” is the first contemporary pop release on the Verve label. The only other non-jazz artist on Verve are the Righteous Brothers.
Polydor international marketing manager Alastair Farquhar is enthusiastic. “Suffice it to say, the album is an extraordinary piece of work. There are no EHR friendly tracks, but then there weren’t any on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” or Mike Oldfield’s “Tubular Bells.”
“Our campaign is aimed at retail and the press. We have to be realistic; it’s just the nature of the album. The reactions in the key UK pop magazines, such as Melody Maker, NME and Q reflect our direction. The critics find it superb, brilliant. We target the age group between 25-40, who tend to read these quality magazines.”
Polydor produced a number of promotional items for the press. There is a stationary box, containing such things as pens, rulers, paperclips and a Talk Talk notebook. A picture CD is enclosed with a yellow pine box. Adds Farquhar, “It’s something that people will find useful. Usually every big release goes with oceans of promo material, but never any of practical value.”
As usual, James Marsh designed the album sleeve – and this one shows a number of birds sitting in a tree, against a dark blue background. Vintage Talk Talk, it should be instantly recognisable to their fans. A heavy in-store push will be based on the Marsh designs. Although the company will not release regular singles eligible for chart inclusion, a limited edition three-CD single box, containing album tracks and previously unreleased material, will be issued. The first single in the box, “After The Flood”, will be released on October 7, to be followed by “New Grass” on October 28 and “Ascension Day” on November 25. The box will be commercially available in France, Canada and the UK only. All the other territories around the world have taken it for promotional/marketing usage only. Explains Farquhar, “it will continue to generate interest in the whole project.”
On July 11, the album was launched for a number of territories in the Planetarium in Paris, a setting that suited it impeccably. There are no plans for touring because “The stage is far too poor a medium to reproduce this music,” as Aspden puts it.

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Bravo Magazine, July 1986

Talk Talk’s singer Mark – he never goes on stage without his green glasses
Mark explodes on the mic!

Things get lively in the Talk Talk dressing room before the guys perform. Paul Webb (bass) and Lee Harris (drums), the two buddies who went to school together, let the vodka bottle spin or, to put it better, let it fly . Everyone stands in a corner of the room, takes a sip and tosses the bottle to their partner.

Singer Mark, who is quietly scribbling on a piece of paper at the table, keeps ducking his head in defense, but doesn’t complain a word to his bandmates.

But then, about ten minutes before the starting signal, things get serious. Mark dons his trademark, inevitable green glasses, and begins his “meditation.” Strange noises can be heard outside the door – deep grumbling, as if from a grizzly bear’s throat, alternating with high-pitched hissing sounds.

With such tones Mark sings himself loose. They work to systematically relax his whole body until he feels completely weightless.

The green glasses that bathe the whole world in a soft light for the singer serve the same purpose. The Talk Talk boss still has the same problems as at the beginning of his career: Large crowds scare the introverted guy quite a bit. Only when he has completely relaxed beforehand does he bring himself on stage. On stage, too, he squats down on the drum pedestal, seemingly meditating and with his head bowed, as soon as a solo is announced.

After the performance in Munich, Mark immediately disappeared into the hotel. While his band mates were having fun with the other rockers at a garden party, he was already in bed. Parties aren’t Mark’s thing.

I thought the singer was weak because of his shyness, but he is very tough. He has the two hotheads Lee and Paul fully under control. Mark, a vegetarian for years because he feels sorry for the animals being slaughtered, has now managed to “convert” the other two, not to eat meat anymore…

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Rock This Town, November 1984

Knock Knock, It’s Talk Talk

“I want to write songs that you will still want to listen to in twenty years”: says Mark Hollis, singer, leader, mastermind and spokesperson for Talk Talk. In his mouth, such a sentence contains neither pride nor smugness. Hollis loves music in general and his own in particular: He talks about his art with passion, leaves no detail unanswered and launches into marathon responses that ultimately make Talk Talk aptly named.

Formed at the dawn of 1982, Talk Talk imposed itself on the world scale without any competitor having had time to set foot on the starting block in the neighboring lane. In fact, a bit like Mike Oldfield, Chris De Burgh or Murray Head, Talk Talk has no real challenger since they do not fit into any one category and do not convey any particular image.

MH: “Talk Talk has succeeded thanks to the quality of our music. We did nothing but record songs: immediately, they were liked. Our success is not due to a suggestive look or provocative videos. Yet, I like videos, but why approach it from an overkill perspective. Now, all the groups show themselves in the videos differently than how they are in reality. This afternoon, I just saw Billy Idol on TV… Balls, yes. We are simple guys and we present ourselves as such. In “Dum Dum Girl”, our latest music video, we are seen right in the middle of a field and I sing into a microphone, live. It’s really my voice in the field that you hear”.

A moving formation
“Party’s Over”, the group’s first LP was released in July 82. Produced by Mike Robinson. Talk Talk consisted of four members at the time: Mark Hollis (vocals), Lee Harris (drums), Paul Webb (bass), and Simon Brenner (keyboards). “It’s My Life” followed in February 84, produced by Tim Friese-Greene. The line-up is now reduced to three members (Hollis, Harris, Webb) who called on a few friends: Robbie MacIntosh (Pretenders), Morris Pert (Brand X), Phil Ramocon,… The two albums were of course preceded and followed by a string of singles: “Mirror Man”, “Talk Talk”, “Today”, “My Foolish Friend”, “It’s My Life”, “Such A Shame”,…

MH: “I think our two LPs contain similar material but it’s the approach that distinguishes them. In “Party’s Over” we still have the influence of punk, we are simple and direct there, whereas in “It’s My Life” we developed and took care of the orchestrations. In fact, “It’s My Life” should theoretically have been an album without artifice, jazzy in the Coltrane spirit: piano, sax, bass, drums. But as the work progressed , we collaborated with guests. I insist on the term “guests” and especially not studio musicians”.

RTT: When you started, you recorded demos with Jimmy Miller, a very sixties producer (Traffic, Blind Faith”. Do you like the mentality of that time?

MH” “Absolutely. And for two reasons. First, in the sixties, I have the impression that the albums were much better than today. Bands like King Crimson and Traffic for example have recorded LPs where there is not a piece to throw away. In the 80s, few albums can be listened to from start to finish. Then at that time the look was of minimal importance. The public expected music above all else”.

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Rolling Stone (German Edition) – Mark Hollis Obituary 2019

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On the death of Mark Hollis: The man who needed no role models

by Sebastian Zabel 02/26/2019

He sang in a gesture of desperation, which one could find romantic. The record company also believed Talk Talk could be New Romantics. In the end he pushed his music into the open, genres dissolved in a sound of great freedom. An obituary for Mark Hollis.

A thin man with a long parting in the middle, straggly hair falling over his face, ears sticking out to the left and right, eyes behind dark wire-rimmed glasses. Mark Hollis wasn’t a pop star, he was the opposite of a pop star. A shy artist who refused the constraints and demands of the music industry, who gave up everything at the peak of his success, or rather: did what he and his band were headed for with unprecedented consistency, in the end alone with his producer and a piece of music of disappearance. Now Mark Hollis is dead.

His band was called Talk Talk, after a song the London musician wrote early on. The song “Talk Talk” had already set the tone that would make Hollis’ band unique: a perfunctory synth-pop track with lava flowing beneath its shell. Mark Hollis sang with an air of desperation, which could be considered romantic, and his record company thought the young band, which also included Hollis on bassist Paul Webb, drummer Lee Harris and keyboardist Simon Brenner, would do well to sway into the early ’80s To be able to fit in with the new romance wave. The Party’s Over was the name of their first album, a statement that was lost in the roar of its contemporaries Duran Duran and Depeche Mode.

Hollis could write hits. “It’s My Life”, “Such A Shame”, “Dum Dum Girl” – British pop music of the mid-80s had few better. And nobody could combine euphoria and depression more convincingly. “Funny, how I find myself in love with you?/ If I could buy my reasoning, I’d pay to lose,” Hollis sang emphatically, “It’s my life/ Don’t you forget/It never ends.”

That wasn’t true.

But of course, when 1986’s third album, The Color Of Spring, was released, there was no telling how Hollis would take his fellow musicians to the fringes of popular pop schemes and beyond. “Life’s What You Make It” is yet another unlikely and irresistible scream propelled by a powerful piano riff. A desperate celebration of life, baby.

After that, Mark Hollis and Talk Talk destroyed her career. Sprit Of Eden was released in 1988. They isolated themselves to the recordings in a church, ignored several of their label’s deadlines and far exceeded the budget. The album consisted of six pieces and knew no role models. At least not in the pop context it should have fit into. Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene, who had increasingly become Hollis’ closest musical partner, pushed their music into the open, genres dissolved in a sound of great freedom.

There were no more singles and nothing commercially to get. The label turned off the juice. And Hollis recorded a final talk-talk album with Friese-Greene called Laughing Stock, which is breathtaking in its soaring, meandering sonority. It was released on the jazz label Verve. A ghost piano gropes its way through “Taphead”, a trumpet finds a melody, Hollis whimpers from afar. The six pieces gyrate and flow into one another, like blues, jazz, trace elements of classical pop music and romantic classical music flow into one another. Mark Hollis’s desperation seemed to have given way to concentrated absorption.

Once again, twenty years ago, Mark Hollis gave a sign of life. He released a self-titled solo album, his first and only, a work of dissolution, music that seemed to stand in mid-air like a dragonfly, a sound against which Laughing Stock seemed heavy and voluminous. It was to be Hollis’ final departure from music.

What has Mark Hollis been up to for the past twenty years? One does not know. He remains hidden from the public. The few confidants he kept in touch with reported that he leads a modest life, made possible by the accomplishments of his hits, that he has an interest in football and shows no intention whatsoever of returning to music. A New Wave Syd Barrett.

He died on Monday February 18th.

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October 1988 Interview to promote “Spirit of Eden” with Richard Skinner, BBC1

RS – Richard Skinner

MH – Mark Hollis

The tape cuts in here with Richard Skinner “….to Mark Hollis the lead singer of Talk Talk” …

RS: “Our guest today is Mark Hollis of Talk Talk, and I guess first of all we have to say, the new album has been a long time coming”.

MH: “Sure”.

RS: “Exactly how long did it take to record?”

MH: “About 14 months I think something like that.  Just really because of the principle of recording it which there were sort of two main ethics with this album.  One was sort of to still work in terms of this sort of, you know, Gil Evans approach to construction but the other thing was that the most important aspect of this record should be its attitude.  And you know, music at its best I think is music when it first emerges and music when it is at its most spontaneous.  So why it took so long was because apart from like a basic guideline to this record virtually everything that is played within it is actually spontaneously played and then later assembled, so that it meant for example you know, you might be working with someone say for ten hours and get sort of ten seconds of music from them.  But it was the only approach I could see that would actually give us an end result of this type.”

RS: “it actually opens with a trumpet note which is perhaps reminiscent of Miles Davis (at the same time MH: “Miles Davis”), which is a …”

MH: “Miles Davis, absolutely, yeah, definitely.”

RS: “Is this one of many references that we could find if we were to reflect?”

MH: “Yeah I would say it is, I would definitely say that.  I mean there are a lot of references within this album to different things.  And sure, that “Sketches of Spain” is definitely one important thing.

RS:“ You’ve described your music actually as a reaction against what’s going on in other people’s music at the moment.  What is wrong, do you think, with other people’s music today?.”

MH: “Well I, all it is, as a generalisation, I think the trend is far too much towards singles, and far too much towards the sort of technicality of music, rather than the actual spirit of music, you know, like I say, the most important thing of this album above everything to me, is just that is has feeling within it.  It’s sort of like you know, maybe like say the first thing that I ever learned when I started making records was that if you went in and you made a demo of a song it would inevitably be better than the finished recording regardless of the cost.  So, all this album really is about, is just trying to catch these moments from people as they first emerge, rather than them being sort of dictated parts.”

RS: “It must have been a nightmare having to assemble it afterwards then.”

MH: “Yeah.  Well, I mean, the assembling just went you know, as you were working each day, but at times it was a nightmare listening to, you know, vast amounts of someone playing and then sort of giving it the red button, you know. Yeah”

RS: ”Yes, because judgements can change.  The perfect take for today, can be the one that you’d throw away tomorrow, sometimes.”

MH: “Well I mean you see, in terms of the take, you see, the only way that a sort of take situation occurred, was just in the very basic laying down of the track where sort of like, you know, maybe three of us would just put the basis down.  From that point onward, you know, there is no take.  You see, this is the one reason why I don’t think an album, the way this is made, could have existed in an earlier time, because it is only because of the advent of this sort of digital recording technology, that you can get away with the way this album has been constructed, which is just that thing of giving people absolute freedom, being able to take the smallest amount of what they play, but not even necessarily using it where they did play it, you know, putting it elsewhere in the album and then you know, being able to make this very careful construction of arrangement but absolutely everything that is played is fresh and from that person.

You know, it’s sort of like, with this album, I think, what Talk Talk is on this album really, is like a kind of co-operative of musicians, and with the exception of maybe say like four people on this album who have dictated parts, everyone who played on this album, it is as much their album as it is anybody else’s album, because it has come from them, not from, you know, not from me.”RS: “Yeah, we’re talking some 16 musicians, plus the choir of Chelmsford Cathedral.”

MH:” Yes right, but I mean, you know, we had, I mean we must have had like easily 50 musicians in that tried for a place on this album.  But you know, it’s really not a question of technique, this is the really important thing about the attitude of this album, it is just purely like a question of understanding the feel of this album, not a thing of technique at all.  I really do think you could have a 5 year old child could easily have got on this album, providing, you know, he understood it.  This album, you know, is just purely, I really think for people listening to this album, they will understand it or they won’t understand it.  There is no way I can convince anyone to like this album.  I don’t wish to.  I just think you know, you either go with what it is about, or you will never know.”

RS: “In America, they tend to group you in this awful tag of New Age, or ambient music.  What’s your thought on that?”

MH: ”Right, right”. “The thing of like ambient music, I don’t know what it is, but in terms of its definition, I mean, ambience is something that I love very much.  The whole way that, you know, that this album has been recorded, is with a regard to natural ambience that’s sort of virtually everything would be miked at the distance to allow you the amount of echo you want rather than adding it you know, from a desk.  So that sort of organic thing is a very important aspect of what this album is.”

RS: “We’re talking to Mark Hollis of the band.  Who plays the blues harp?”

MH: “Oh, Mark Feltham.  Mark Feltham, the same person that played on our last album.  A great player.  You know, again, there are so few people that I come across with who really absolutely have a feeling for music and he really does, you know.”

RS: ”There’s a real sort of contradiction in sound between that church piano, the organ sounds, and then there’s the harp, and the guitar, the heavy guitar. You trying to shock us here?”

MH: “Sure”. “Well, I just think, you know, I’ve always liked the idea that things that oppose each other can co-exist, that’s all it is”.

RS: “Um, it’ll shock your listeners.  Do you know who your listeners are? Do you have an idea?”

MH: “No I don’t.  I would think you know, there is a core of people who have stayed with us throughout our career, if you like.  And I would think you know, because of the way our albums change, other people have sort of come and gone.”

RS: “Yeah changed dramatically too, over the 6 years.

MH: “Yeah, I would think so. Yeah.  I mean I just think that is the most important aspect to making a record, I think unless it actually shows some form of development or change, I cannot understand the reason for making a record otherwise.”

RS: “Mm, so why did you choose the Eden concept? What is the “Spirit of Eden”? What was that about?”

MH: “Well all “Spirit of Eden” means to me, is it means two things within that same title.  It means what is created and then, what has been destroyed.  That’s all it means. Again it is this thing of two opposites co-existing.  That’s why I like the title”.

RS: “Is it then an allegory, the whole thing, perhaps for our times?  I don’t want to get too serious about it.”

MH: ”Yeah”. “Maybe it is yeah, maybe.  Yeah, I mean lyrics and things aren’t something I sort of really like to talk about, you know.  These aren’t sort of you know.  These do mean a lot to me these lyrics and I don’t think they are sort of too inaccessible as long as you spend a lot of time with them, you know, I think if you do actually spend enough time with them, they will become very apparent as to what they mean.  But, I just sort of think, in the same way with the musical side of the album, it’s something that should unfold itself over a period of time.  I think the same should be true with the lyrics, so I’d be loathe to …”RS: “Alright, rather than talk about the lyrics then, what do you think about the way we are nowadays. I mean modern society we seem to be grabbing more and more, while at the same time, losing more basic values perhaps.”

MH: “Yes” “Yeah. Yeah. Maybe.  Maybe.  I mean my biggest worry is just sort of where communities become lost, that’s my biggest worry.”

RS: “You mean in inner cities, or in countries, or what?”

MH: “I just mean you know, as people sort of get more insular from each other, that’s my biggest worry. You know, and also, in terms of things like the radio and in things of like television, to a large extent there’s a tendency to treat them as a background noise and just let them go on regardless of whether there’s something that you actually pay attention to.  I think silence is an extremely important thing, and I think you know, it isn’t something that should be abused, and that’s my biggest worry, is because of with the whole sort of way communications have developed and everything that there is a tendency just to sort of, allow this, allow this sort of, you know, this background noise all the time rather than actually just thinking about what is important.”

RS: “That’s fair. Very fair.  I’ve been listening to it, on a CD, this album.  It seems to me that you’ve actually made it with the compact disc in mind.”

MH:  “Right.” “Yeah, absolutely.  Absolutely.  I mean this album does…  You know, I would never make something for, you know, I would never sort of put more tracks on a compact disc than I would on an album, because I hate the idea that what you’re doing is you’re sort of working to like an elitist market and you’re saying you know because you can afford a compact disc player then I will give you more of our repertoire than if you can’t.  But, the, you know, this is made with absolute extremes of dynamic and it is just a fact that the compact disc can handle that better than an album can, or a tape can.”

RS: “The dynamic range is very wide, I turned it on, pretty loud, I didn’t realise, didn’t  know the opening section with the wildlife noises, the music came and I was nearly out the door.  It blasted me out.  Did you use any special recording techniques to ensure the high quality of the sound.  I mean digital you’ve mentioned already.”

MH: “Yeah that’s right. Sure, yeah sure. Yeah, that’s right.” “Yeah sure, and like I say, the other thing is just with using ambience and the fact that you know, to me you see it’s that technically the sounds aren’t important, what is important is just the actual feeling in the sound.  So the sound doesn’t have to be this enormous thing, it is just the feeling that’s important.  And then, it was just a question of working with an engineer who actually had a really good understanding of recording.   I mean you know, the bloke that we’ve used on this album, Phill Brown, I mean where his career actually dates from is like Electric Ladyland, you know, we’ve had someone who’s been sort of like you know in engineering twenty years now.  So, he’s worked with such an array of things, has such a good understanding, you know that was an important, an important aspect when we went in to make this album.”

RS: “So once again, it’s all very natural.  You’re not getting into a contrived deal you know.”

MH: “Absolutely, absolutely. You see the most important thing to know at the point when went in to make this album was just the attitude that the album should have.  That what the album would end up sounding like, there was no way of knowing that.  But it was an important thing because as long as everything was recorded with the correct feel you could never go wrong.”RS: ”Thinking of the music for a second, there are a series of these slow build ups, using drums and bass and guitar.  You always sort of leave tension though, don’t you, as it happens.  And then it sort of resolves and disappears.  Now was this a deliberate idea that you decided to repeat through the album, or did it happen by accident.”

MH: “Yeah sure, sure.” “Yeah”. “Yeah absolutely.” “Well I mean all of this thing, it’s like the construction of this first side, it’s like you know, there are so many sort of areas of music that you know, not only myself but Friese-Green like, that work in a longer format than just sort of like 5 minutes.  I mean so much of that sort of Impressionist period of music, I think is very important upon the way that this album works.  And that was why it was important to make this first side over that length so that, you know, the dynamic could be something that was arrived at very leisurely and very carefully, and the moments of silence could sort of really, you know, spill out.”

RS: “Mark, you’ve used all real instruments on this album.  In the past I know you’ve used computer enhanced type instruments, synthesisers, why the change?”

MH: ”Yeah, absolutely”. “Sure, sure”. “Well, in the past that was just purely a thing of economic necessity.  I mean at the time of “It’s my Life”, you know, the textural approach to the album was still there, but it was just purely an economic thing.  There was no way we could afford to do it any other way.  I mean, with this album, you know, like I say, it’s sort of you know.  It’s what we find ourselves being able to do now.”

RS: “And it wasn’t cheap”.

MH: ”No, no. No, I think it cost more than thirty quid. Yeah.”

RS: “I think it did too!  Who would you say are your musical heroes?  Maybe ones who are, in a sense, represented in this work.”

MH: “Well my three main areas of music that I’d think are most important to this you know, I would say is definitely that late 50’s early 60s Jazz scene, the early 50’s Blues scene and then the turn of the century Impressionist stuff.  I would say absolutely that would cover the main elements of this album.”

RS: “Been listening to the words, or trying to listen to the words.  You seem when the band is really kind of going hell for leather you almost lose the record. Almost.”

MH: “Yeah, sure, sure. Well I mean you know, they should just be a part of you know, the sort of scenario as much everything else.  I don’t sort of think of writing these things that everything is subservient to a vocal.  I think you know, in order to, well certainly in terms of the way we’ve wanted this album to sound, it’s really important the positioning of where this vocal sits and the minute it becomes too loud it just assumes you know an overriding importance that is shouldn’t take.”

RS:”I think one thing that happens with the way you’ve mixed the vocals, they almost add to the dark side to the album, you know, that sort of mood.”

MH: ”Yeah, Sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, I would say that.”

RS: “Does the way the music has been mixed, in terms of having these violent contrasts in style and volume, is this all part of the message do you think?”

MH: “Right. Sure.”  “Well I just think it’s part of the way a record should be put together, that’s all I think it is, you know.”

RS: “That’s a very simple answer to a complicated question!  Here’s ‘Inheritance.’”

MH: “Yes, mainly ‘cos I didn’t understand the question.”