Spirit of Eden came a particularly important
juncture for me and for music as well. I had known
of Talk Talk since their debut record and became even more interested in their work after
seeing a very impressive live performance of the It's
My Life material in 1984. I did not become
a full-fledged devotee, however, until re-discovering Colour of Spring. I
say re-discovering because I had heard it when it first came out, but was less than
impressed. After giving it a second chance
while living abroad for a year, the album seemed to blossom before me. It is a record with a wonderful blend of songwriting and
musical exploration - of craft and of intuition.
But none of Talk Talk's prior
work prepared any of us for what was to follow. By the late eighties, I had grown tired of
the general mediocrity of the popular music being created. With
notable exceptions (Talk Talk being the most obvious), it seemed that a spark had faded
from the majority of musicians who had moved my soul so profoundly only a few years
earlier. While I searched among classical and
jazz artists I could never seem to find the right combination. In some cases good ideas were often rendered too
intellectually or obtuse or they lacked a real musical grace; in other cases the music
lacked depth or an exploratory sense. Years later I would find several giants in both
genres but at the time I was at a loss.
Into this void came Spirit of Eden. Talk
Talk had abandoned synths (and suits) long before, but this record was wholly different
from any of their previous albums. It was a
confusing listen at first. The opening moments
offered no drums, no bassline, no obvious rhythm and certainly no melody. Strange, especially for a band that
made it's trademark with precisely those elements. What
there were, were strings--real strings--at high and very low registers, a muted trumpet,
and some whirling noise that reminded one of a crude effect from a '30s radio program. And searing into this beautiful blend of sound was
a crystal clear and brassy, ringing electric guitar sliding around on some odd notes that
sounded remotely like chords but somehow other-worldly. This
was not just song-writing, it was composition. It
was as powerful a musical moment as any I had encountered.
The oft-cited musical
revelation of the Beatles' Sergeant Peppers was
without a doubt a defining event in rock music and popular culture. But I do not believe that it is even remotely as
definitive a musical event as the positively entrance of "The
Rainbow/Eden/Desire." Not only had the craft
of the music been taken to an extremely high level, as was the case with Sergeant Peppers,
but it's form was without any real precedent. In
the first 10 minutes of the work, there were no real "songs"; neither were there
attempts at pseudo-symphonies or avant-garde mantras found in much of the music of
progressive rock and new age stylists. Its
closest cousin, formally speaking, might be the jazz recordings of Miles Davis in the late
50s and early 60s. But then these gorgeous
works were entirely improvised and completely instrumental. Further,
most of these pieces focussed around a recognizable "head" or melody. Mark Hollis' poetic groans and whisps are a major contribution to the overall feel and
"spirit" of Spirit of Eden. Certainly, without them the music is reduced to
mere meandering (listen to the instrumental outtakes from Laughing Stock -
"Stump" and "5:09"). With
them, the listener is taken to a place both familiar and exploratory, graceful and
powerful.
In 1987 I was young enough to
still feel at the beginning of my creative life but old enough to understand the musical
morass at which the western world had arrived. Music
that had begun on the fringes had been gradually usurped by a mainstream media wanting to
capitalize on its natural ability to generate huge sales. This
latter fact was nothing new - just how the system works. But
very few artists are willing to take the economic risks necessary to push their art nor
the artistic risks necessary to explore uncharted territory. What was achieved by Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene
and everyone else involved in the making of the album was a losing of the self to the
music. About allowing the trueness of the
music and poetry to be the primary concern. This
simple, but not easy, change in focus is what lifts Spirit
of Eden out of the realm of "popular" music and into the realm of true art. And it is this force behind their creative energy that
has had a profound on my own work and given hope that such an art is possible and
therefore worth pursuing.
