Last updated February 12, 1998
From Q, 1991
TALK TALK
Laughing Stock
Verve
One year after million selling compilation Natural History and two years after the distinctly uncommercial Spirit of Eden, comes Talk Talk's new offering. That the group should choose to follow the experimental free-form moodiness of the latter rather than the seductively melodic compositions of the former will no doubt cause their new label a few heart-searching moments but, though Laughing Stock is even more withdrawn and personal then before, it does not disappoint.
Laughing Stock is clearly a descendant of Spirit of Eden. Like its predecessor, it contains just six lengthy tracks and continues Hollis's partnership with producer-contributor Tim Friese-Greene.
Musically too, Laughing Stock sounds as if it might have been culled from hours of improvisation, belonging to some spiritual whole. Two tracks share the same upbeat jazzy drum figure repeated throughout (the splashily percussive kind so often used as a rhythmic base for instrumental exploration), there are no gaps between tracks - indeed two overlaps - while two more share an opening guitar pattern.
There are no songs in the pop song-and-verse sense, rather an instrumental ebb and flow through a sparse musical soundscape. It's quiet but intense, using the familiar Talk Talk sounds of ringing guitar, acoustic double bass, near-motionless Debussy-like piano and swelling Hammond organ (supplemented on occasion by the equally subdued sounds of harmonium, clarinet, sax and mouth organ) drifting in and out of a loosely melodic structure with its own internal dynamics. Here too are the more abrasive sparks of free-form guitar and, more than once, the emotive mouth organ and simply bluesy guitar evoking the spirit of a doomed Robert Johnson facing the hellhound on his tail.
It is into this heavily suggestive atmospheric backdrop that Mark Hollis drops his periodic vocal appearances. Lyrically, he remains as elusive as ever. Some of his skeletal, cryptic lyrics are like a verbal equivalent of Twin Peaks where the images are precise enough but their meaning has to be divined. This time, however, there's a strongly mystical, almost religious theme running through titles like Ascension Day and After The Flood. The ideas of sin, dying and regeneration recur in almost every song, with images such as love and damnation, sacraments and blood casting a heavily fatalistic shadow over the glimpses of tunes, a mood of resignation reinforced by Hollis's mournful delivery or tremulous near whisper.
Jolly party music it isn't but Laughing Stock has its own brooding appeal which grows with every play. The melancholy mood, a rare thoughtfulness and the sense of sharing something deeply personal, together with the haunting, emotional quality of the understated music, put Talk Talk heavily at odds with the commercial charts where instant success is everything. Yet precisely the same qualities will ensure that even though Laughing Stock may lose Hollis some of his newly found friends, it will be valued long after such superficial quick thrills are forgotten.
****
Ian Cranna