C/D: Mark Hollis' solo album

absolutely classic.

http://users.cybercity.dk/~bcc11425/

Great site -- I'm a contributor (via some transcriptions, including Jim Arundel's review of Laughing Stock for MM, which has one of the best opening lines from a revew ever: "I may as well attempt to describe the dawn for you.")

Solo album is very great. My thoughts on it here:

http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/ned/n131.html

The man has three classics under his belt. Spirit Of Eden, Laughing Stock and the solo album.

The world definitely needs more.

Everytime I check out a record that apparently references Talk Talk's golden period, I'm usually disappointed.

...and album-wise, just frustratingly not as good as Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden.

There is a slight jazz feel to this record. There are elements of soundtrack ambience. There are songs called "After The Flood". There are lyrics like "A hunger uncurbed by nature's calling". The whole thing is unutterably pretentious and looks over its shoulder hoping that someone will remark on its 'moody brilliance' or some such. It's horrible.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! That's brilliant! Best negative review of a great album ever!

Just listened to it the other day! (Phill Brown produced.) It's good but very low key.

I still like this one (is it a different NME review?):

Idiosyncratic and genuinely odd, Talk Talk were always a band without a place or a time that was their own. Their voyages always took them close to the edge, often with stunning results. 'Laughing Stock', though, is the sound of captain Hollis and his crew finally disappearing over the horizon.

They gave it a "5", and since I don't know NME's rating scale I assume is out of 10 since the review sounded negative on the whole. I love that bit about them "disappearing over the horizon" though. I'm sure it was supposed to be a negative statement but it sounds like perfectly appropriate praise to me.

i think i like his solo record best of all.

What IS that on the cover?

Great album, reminds me of the month or so when I was effectively blind before my cataract operation when it was all I was playing in my darkened room.

The only song on that record that Mark had anything to do with was a minimalist 15-minute solo piano thing. It later appeared on Talk Talk's Missing Pieces compilation. It is the worst Talk Talk/Mark Hollis song of all time.

I know Hollis has "retired", but I read on AMG he provided arrangements for an album released in 2001, Anja Gabarek's "Smiling and Waving". Has anyone ever heard it?-- Philip Alderman (Phil A), teisipäev, 22. Veebruar 2005 16:45

Just re-listened to a couple of songs from this Anja Garbarek CD. (It's the one where "Stay Tuned", covered by Robert Wyatt on his 2007's Comicopera, comes from)
As per Mark Hollis, he co-arranged (w/ Anja) only two songs on Smiling and Waving -- "The Gown" and "Big Mouth". The former has more of a recognizable Hollis-touch to it. The latter, starting off all busily drum'n'bassy, wouldn't make me think of Hollis in particular...

The credits have Hollis as also the producer of two songs: "The Gown" and "The Diver" (with Wyatt's co-lead vocal). Well, "The Diver" does sound sorta Hollis-some as well, at least to my ears. ;)

the first time I heard this album was on a beautiful day back this past May. a strong wind had come through the night before and ripped all the blossoms off the dogwoods, leaving piles of white petals on the ground to lazily swirl around and get caught in updrafts. I do not think there was a better thing to be listening to while walking around that day than "The Colour of Spring".

as for the rest of the album, I could take it or leave it. it seems elusive, and I haven't really put in the effort to properly study it, so the overall impression I have is Talk Talk with the dissonant woodwind interludes cranked up to 11.

er, that should've been either "this past May" or "back in May". I am not affecting some sort of weird folksy diction or anything.

The opening track from this, The Colour Of Spring, is currently soundtracking an advert for some US missing persons drama on the C4 network of channels. wtf?!

A lot of Talk Talk/Mark Hollis gets used on TV programmes. There was a recent South Bank Show about the depiction of Jesus in Islam which had some of Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock on it! They were obviously looking for some vaguely religious music.

Ahhh, how Mark Hollis can make me feel torn sometimes between that admittedly selfish longing, drenched in melancholy, for new music of him. Knowing a genius like Hollis is around yet consciously made the decision to not make music anymore... Yet on the other hand I completely admire him for it, think it is a highly brave and admirable thing to do, to follow one's own path like this. Even if it means defying what would be a logical continuation of the past. A past erected as a monument, set in stone, so immaculate and without precedent.

I keep hovering in between those two ends of the stick every time I hear his music. But that music stays the same, forever, stays so completely brilliant.

I guess I'll just keep hovering, grateful and in admiration.

We listened to this at our record club last week.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/mark-hollis-mark-hollis-round-37-grahams-choice/

this track, strikes me as very Mark Hollis inspired

CFCF - The Ruined Map

https://soundcloud.com/driftlessrecordings/driftless-cfcf-radiance-05-theruinedmap-mstr-ml-v3-03-13-15

"The Ruined Map" is the first single from the new CFCF LP, "Radiance and Submission", out this summer on Driftless Recordings.