Last updated February 27, 1998
From The Wire, February, 1998
The spotlight falls on a singer at the piano marking out restrained emotional chords. Not a million miles from the start of any moody romantic rock ballad - whether Joni Mitchell or Elton John. But the eight songs here drift into strange melodic expansions. Woodwind and other acoustic instruments obliquely touch in spectral emotional expressions round the singer's halting whispers. A Miles Davis-inspired trumpet line interjects a muted emotional comment, a harmonica creates faint kaleidoscopic flares out of the merest shiver. Only acoustic instruments are used and these are miked to catch the breathiest tremor of sound. This first solo release by Mark Hollis after his days as front man for Talk Talk represents the timbral and melodic expansion of the rock ballad into a symphonic tone poem. REM for Radio 3 listeners.
I hate to use the word 'haunting' to describe a piece of music, because I don't believe in ghosts. And yet, there are ghosts that can dog the feedback loops of self-expression; ghosts of past events that call up familiar, resigned responses; ghosts of unfulfilled wishes, feared and longed for, that rise every time one veers from a habitual path. These are the kind of sirens that hover over the music here. The disc has so many twists and turns you think you're on track 20 by the time you've reached number five. The sounds are thick and warm, but there's enough Satieseque pause and poise for it not to turn lush. No sentimental mush. On tracks like "The Watershed" and "The Gift" a greater stridency comes not from the pomp of rock but subtly sidewinding beats, undulating double bass notes, and jangling ride cymbals.
Otherwise, the phrases are so tentative and full of unexpected transpositions and returns, it's impossible to predict where each chord will settle. Indeed, the music regularly disappears altogether. Strummed riffs peter out into atonal woodwind specks. "A Life (1895-1915)" winds out a line of crisp but folksy pathos, reminiscent of Tom Waits's orchestrations, but what's sketched in around it are the barest fragments of melodic phrases - almost Cagean flutterings and random emphases.
And throughout the album, underpinning its emotional explorations, are Hollis's vocals - as quavery as a bamboo flute, and so self-effacing and inward he could be singing the lyrics backwards. If you caught the last two Talk Talk albums you'll have some idea of what to expect. If not, Hollis's haunted soul is worth checking out by anyone ever touched by the voices of singers such as John Martyn or David Sylvian.
Matt Ffytche