Last updated March 11, 1998
By Mette Castbak
"I think, I’m basically instinctive, and I would generally act upon that. But at the same time I do think carefully about things. While recording the album, there were this thing that I wanted to do, and then there were this thing, but you never know at what it would actually arrive at. And that is what is instinctive. You can imagine yourself being different objects, like a water molecule. Heat is being given to you, so at some point you’re gonna turn into air. And you play through this period, and you have to make a transition from liquid to gas."
The singer, songwriter and pianist from the now dissolved English band Talk Talk is sitting fragile and upright with attentive eyes lighting up his pale face. After ten years as the moving spirit of a constantly self-improving band project, that was one of the 80's most advanced contributions to the popscene, Mark Hollis has released his first solo album. As something completely new the whole album is acoustic. It is very experimental in it’s style, but it is constructed as if it was a classical arrangement. A lot of pages have been turned since the hitsong of 1986, 'Life’s What You Make It.'
"I think of every album like a chapter. Through the time between making albums you do mentally undergo changes. And from one album to the next I would never expect someone that liked one album to like the next. The fact that this is an acoustic album is obviously odd to anything I’ve previously done to date. The reason to this album is to work acoustically, to work with a much more minimal framework, to record in this really shutdown intimate level. To record in a way where you kind of exist within the room in which it’s recorded, and to focus yourself into that. And to try and get this cross-thing between these different areas of music. I feel that I’m somewhere between jazz, folk and classical. I don’t see myself as a songwriter, I just see myself as someone who’s looking to make an album as an experience, rather than a sequence of tracks. I took it for granted that as a result of the album being acoustic, there may be a lot of people who don’t want to know. But I don’t think of it as a change from Talk Talk to this. Though I do think that from one album to the next, there are definite things that you decide that you want to do that you didn’t do before. And I think that is true with this album in that sense," says a smiling Mark Hollis.
After Talk Talk
But isn’t this a bigger chapter for you than the other albums?
"Well, in some ways it is. Because I’ve been working with Tim Friese-Greene (pianist and co-producer in Talk Talk - ed.) over a period of ten years, so it’s kind of like in a relationship, where you develop together and undergo a change between you. It’s not about sort of one minute "Okay, you’re my mate" and then you go and get somebody else in. So, sure, there is more of a difference when that kind of composition relationship came to an end, and then what you have to do is to find other people to work with. In that way, that’s a big difference, because a very crucial part of the album is the writing of it."
Anyhow, the fact that Talk Talk came to an end, didn’t turn Mark Hollis’ world upside down. "Over the last couple of hours it was a very loose, flexible affair. We worked together for a long period that went well. The whole point with the last albums was that, you know, it isn’t this kind of band-thing where it’s all like this tight thing that you’re forced into. It was much looser, we could come together and play, but... The thing with me and Tim, we had worked together over a long period and then we got to a point, where we thought that there were really nowhere for us to go, in terms of how we work and how we write. We’ve always wanted to not to repeat, but then we came to a point where we thought that if we do more, we’re gonna repeat. And with Lee (Harris, drummer in Talk Talk - ed.) who’d sort of like bought his own studio, and he was getting into very different areas of music to where my head is out of everything. I’m just happy that everyone is into what they’re doing and goes where they wanna go."
Musical ambition
Your solo album is very different from the rest of today's music scene. Was that your intention?
"It was not intended to be different, but then it is totally obvious to me, that it would be. Because given the things I wanted to do on this album, I didn’t imagine it would have any relationship at all with the modern music. I don’t think I’ve been in the pop scene since 1986. From the point on when we finished touring, we’ve never done television, radioshows or anything that is connected with it. I don’t feel I’m part of any music scene. I’m just a musician playing with other musicians," Mark Hollis explains.
Not even the beginning of a solo career will make Mark Hollis perform live. He says, that a concert situation doesn’t allow the music to be performed in it’s own acoustic environment. The solo album consists of woodwind, percussion, harmonica, piano, harmonium and acoustic guitar.
"I just love the sound of those instruments hid that low down and the physical sounds that surround the instrument, whether it’s creaking or whether it’s the way air goes through or whatever. That is almost as important as the note. So just purely on a sound aspect, the reality of what an acoustic instrument is, is one reason to why the album is so quiet. Another reason is from a mental point of view, that I just like that kind of calm and that relaxed feel within players and musicians." Mark Hollis describes with soft and simple gestures the quiet rush.
"But mentally, from a vocal point of view, I don’t think it’s all calm. I think it goes for things that are quite severe headwise. But at the same time, I like that kind of way it moves and sort of waves. For me it’s kind of like a sound and a feel of this room that you exist within. But I think, you know, that one minute you might be in a room which is optimistic and then the next minute it completely dives out from that. It’s like with music when you sort of have to find a chord that is justified by the chord that went before it. The same is true emotionally and textwise."
Beneath the surface
The music contains a collection of disturbed emotions which are some how put into an order that you seemed to be developing during the process of writing the music?
"Yeah, yeah. Where that is correct is that it is arranged upfront, so that everything is thought about precise. But when it comes to the way it’s performed, the whole attitude towards that is very loose and free. So I think those things do exist together, whether it’s something very precise and contained or an actual movement in it that is opposite to that kind of thing. It’s kind of like if you looked at my favourite albums ever; when Miles Davis was with Gil Evans, there were two albums: The Sketches Of Spain and the Porgy & Bess. They were very careful arrangements, but within the arrangements there’s a feeling of improvisation that goes on within it. I think my new album is very different moodwise and everything, but I think that the balance of containment might break out as being true in both arrangement and performance."
Mark Hollis takes a brief moment to adjust his matching black tie and jacket being careful to place the tie perfectly on his crisp white shirt.
"If you asked me: "What picture would you look at, when you listen to this album?", I would say something like a picture with only two colours, for instance purple on black, black on red. I would say something where you have something extremely simplistic to look at with no narrative content at all, that has enough texture within it. It’s your imagination that it makes work, and from one moment looking at it to another moment, different things will appear in it. If you just glanced at it, it would just look like nothing was there. It’s like in a relationship. The more you focus on the music, the more you will hear from the music. The more that you give in terms of listening to what’s happening on the album, the more things will reveal themselves within the album."