By admin | Aug 29th, 2011 | News |
Talk Talk’s Laughing Stock, the group’s 1991 final album, took a year to make, and yet it has required decades to fully appreciate. Following up on the abstract and composerly Spirit of Eden, which sufficiently alienating pop fans of the band’s earlier material, Laughing Stock took spaces in recorded music to new extremes, with layers of silence breathing through strings, woodwinds, percussion and Mark Hollis’ delicate vocals. The record exists as one complete thought, albeit with jagged diversions and tangents.
Seven years after Talk Talk’s final record, Laughing Stock, Mark Hollis completed this self-titled album, to date the last thing he has put out. Where his previous band’s music started as hard synth pop and disintegrated into abstraction, Mark Hollis begins with silence, a full twenty seconds of room ambience. That breaks into compositions sprinkled with woodwinds and acoustic guitars, spread delicate and cerebral like Ulysses written on parchment paper. The album is relentless in its tranquility, nestling through contemplative moments without hurry before moving on. Hollis pushed his desire for an open record that nonetheless sounded utterly real and natural, and he achieved something that could just as easily pass like a wisp as endlessly be marveled at for its artistic splendor.
Both albums will be rereleased on vinyl only on October 11th and can be pre-ordered in the BaDaBing shop starting Thursday September 1!
| September 1, 2011 @ 7:18 am
JP says:
Hey there! What time do these two wondeful rereleases go on sale?
| September 1, 2011 @ 10:25 am
admin says:
Hey there – We have them presently in production. The official release date is October 11th, and it looks to be on schedule for that, thankfully.
| September 1, 2011 @ 8:07 am
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma says:
Wow. I cant believe it. Thank you for doing this!
| September 1, 2011 @ 8:56 pm
loosey says:
will this be re-released from the master tapes?
| September 2, 2011 @ 9:22 pm
Jay says:
Are these vinyl?
| September 5, 2011 @ 9:48 am
Martin says:
Thank you, thank you, thank you – this is a piece of news for which I have been longing for years!
| September 5, 2011 @ 11:40 am
fausto says:
are these remastered from the analogue master tapes? And full analogue (throughout the whole mastering process)?
| September 5, 2011 @ 10:41 pm
fausto kantiano says:
are these ‘fully analogue’ mastered from the analogue master tapes?
| September 6, 2011 @ 2:32 pm
fausto kantiano says:
are these full analogue remastered from the original analogue master tapes?
(and now I’d like to see my comment NOT deleted)
| September 9, 2011 @ 4:12 am
Den says:
I would like to know the answer to Fausto’s question.
Thanks.
| September 9, 2011 @ 11:39 am
jp says:
I believe both of these were originally recorded on Pro Tools, so there isn’t an analog source to work from.
| September 9, 2011 @ 9:04 pm
Den says:
Please make the barcode a sticker on the shrink wrap
| September 13, 2011 @ 5:32 pm
fausto says:
I think JP is right, as the article in Quietus (see link) suggests that the latest digital technology was used during recording. But even with a good digital source (92 kHz or more) and a good vinyl mastering & cutting the new LP good be worthwhile and will probably sound better than the cd.
http://thequietus.com/articles/06963-talk-talk-laughing-stock