RIP Mark Hollis

[Inconuucl]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk_Cp3pv638[/youtube]

[popvulture]

Still processing this. Vaguely hoping that the "reportedly" element of the info is wrong. Would seem fitting, given the mystery around him.

Probably wishful thinking, though. All that said, one of the very very greatest. Dearer to me than I can articulate.

[Dandolin]

Wow. That hurts. RIP yeah, words fail me.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw0rzonn8qA[/youtube]

[Inconuucl]

Still processing this. Vaguely hoping that the "reportedly" element of the info is wrong. Would seem fitting, given the mystery around him.

Probably wishful thinking, though. All that said, one of the very very greatest. Dearer to me than I can articulate.

Yeah, a bit of my childhood died with him. I read the news and immediately reacted with "ha no he didn't", guess I'm running out of musical heroes.

[Dowi]

Double thread!
Still, I just can't get myself to accept it. A very few "famous artists" deaths hit me as this one. Late TT albums have been a constant listen in the last few years, same with his solo album, which is one of the most non-popular greatest albums ever.

[Dapper Bandit]

'The Rainbow' just came on the radio as I logged in here. Only recently discovered Talk Talk's later albums but I have always thought 'It's My Life' was a bop.

Everything I've read on Mark has left me in complete awe of his artistic vision and integrity, the world is left a little poorer for his passing.

[Gone Fission]

Not my childhood but my adulthood. Came to Mark and the final Talk Talk albums late. Changed so damn much for me.

BTW, the full book of this link has amazing “making of” insight for Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock, and the solo album: https://tapeop.com/static/frontend/img/ ... er_one.pdf Try to get hands on it.

[Dowi]

BTW, the full book of this link has amazing “making of” insight for Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock, and the solo album: https://tapeop.com/static/frontend/img/ ... er_one.pdf Try to get hands on it.

Nice one GF!
I think I read some excerpts from Brown's book in several Talk Talk retrospective articles but never managed to find the entire chapter. If I recall correctly I remember some really fascinating descriptions about the way the instruments were placed in the recording room when the last albums were recorded (beside having the entire studio dark lighted only by candles and stuff like that).
If you get your hands on it tell us!

[Gone Fission]

I need to pull it off the shelf and re-read. For Talk Talk: Mics across the room, 2” tape overdubs slaved to Mitsubishi 32 track digital reel to reel. Had to do voodoo for compensating the time delay on the mics in the days before mass penetration of Pro Tools (or maybe even the existence of its precursors. All night recording looking for magic and happy accidents. Taking the razor to the master to add 5 bars that Mark found he needed. Rotating oil lamp on full time—after several months a switch of direction of rotation to change things up was unnerving and disruptive.

[friendship]

Oh wow. Coincidentally I had only just discovered his solo record a couple weeks ago and had been spinning it regularly.

[dubkitty]

way before ProTools. Laughing Stock was recorded in 1990-91...at that time the current Mac was still in the little fishtank box. that was around when i first learned computer typesetting; having a single-page monitor was a big fucking deal, and they'd only just digitized Gill Sans which my wife and i used like salt or butter. speaking of food, this was even before Roxio introduced Toast and Jam for a full, balanced breakfast.

[Gone Fission]

Wow, okay. Early Mac history coming back, but I was an outsider looking in. I remember some of the early Digidesign iterations being advertised but a cassette 4 track was out of reach, so it was more of a curiosity. When I took electronic music studio in college it was Tascam analog 16 track and DAT with a sequencer on the Mac—probably Opcode since Galaxy was the patch librarian but maybe MOTU. I’m pretty sure audio recording was coming to the big player sequencers by then but if it was in the studio we didn’t use it—a reel of tape was a cheaper and easier solution than any removable memory tech at the time, pre-Zip drive.

But back to Mark, interesting thing I put together that may not be nonsense: for Colour of Spring, the album before Spirit of Eden that was baby steps that way, David Rhodes, frequent Peter Gabriel sideman, did several guitar tracks, including the lead on Life is What You Make It. Mark asked him to approach it like a particularly schmaltzy klezmer clarinetist. Knowing that puts a spin on the squawkiness of that part that makes me hear differently. But then listen to the clarinets on the solo album. Some of those parts are very guitar-ish, some specifically like an attempt to emulate backwards electric guitar with an acoustic instrument. The humble little chamber group album is still sonically adventurous, eh?

[Dowi]

But back to Mark, interesting thing I put together that may not be nonsense: for Colour of Spring, the album before Spirit of Eden that was baby steps that way, David Rhodes, frequent Peter Gabriel sideman, did several guitar tracks, including the lead on Life is What You Make It. Mark asked him to approach it like a particularly schmaltzy klezmer clarinetist. Knowing that puts a spin on the squawkiness of that part that makes me hear differently. But then listen to the clarinets on the solo album. Some of those parts are very guitar-ish, some specifically like an attempt to emulate backwards electric guitar with an acoustic instrument. The humble little chamber group album is

Now that you mentioned it i can hear that approach on the solo album, never noticed it before!

[freqhaus]

Good to see lots of love for Mark and TT. True visionary. Huge loss