Talk Talk - Spirit Of Eden

It's rainy and cold and rather miserable with the possiblity of snow, which happens about once every 20 years in my neck of the woods. Perfect weather for this.

Though Laughing Stock was their pinnacle, their perfect moment, Talk Talk didn't get there in a single leap. It took this gem to transition. Spirit of Eden cost them their record contract. It never sold. It alienated their fans. And, as their penultimate effort, it ranks only behind Laughing Stock as their finest accomplishment.

Fueled by Hollis's attempt to get the heroin needle out of his arm, the album is wrenching. It was the terror that accompanied that act - and the lack of control he felt - that inspired the cavern-like sound and melancholia of the record.

Less pop music and more Davis's Sketches of Spain, this is where the foundation was laid for the masterpiece that followed. Unstructured and magnificient on its own terms, it deserves some respect.

amg:

Compare Spirit of Eden with any other previous release in the Talk Talk catalog, and it's almost impossible to believe it's the work of the same band — exchanging electronics for live, organic sounds and rejecting structure in favor of mood and atmosphere, the album is an unprecedented breakthrough, a musical and emotional catharsis of immense power. Mark Hollis' songs exist far outside of the pop idiom, drawing instead on ambient textures, jazz-like arrangements, and avant-garde accents; for all of their intricacy and delicate beauty, compositions like "Inheritance" and "I Believe in You" also possess an elemental strength — Hollis' oblique lyrics speak to themes of loss and redemption with understated grace, and his hauntingly poignant vocals evoke wrenching spiritual turmoil tempered with unflagging hope. A singular musical experience.

Graham Coxon of Blur has said that he's never met anyone who likes this album, and if someone did they didn't like it as much as he did. I think he's probably mistaken about that last part.

Hear