Mark Hollis: A Perfect Silence

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Talk Talk I Believe In You https://t.co/NZ2pRmNDkf Mark Hollis, one of my most favourite songs ever. The most enigmatic, elusive and brilliant songwriter, singer and musician. A huge loss ? In the silence Hollis left behind, devotion to his achievements has grown. He gave his last interviews around his eponymous album, and Paul ‘Rustin Man’ Webb (bass), Lee Harris (drums) and Tim Friese-Greene (sometime producer and multi-disciplined, unofficial Talk Talk band member) have also refused to discuss their work together ever since, apparently out of respect. Perrone, Pierre (8 October 2012). "After all this time, it's still good to Talk Talk". The Independent . Retrieved 25 February 2019. There was always a link with prog. That early show with Genesis may have been something of a nightmare on the day, the atrocious weather fuelling the disgruntlement of an audience who took it out on the support act, but there’s a discernible bittersweet, happy-sad element shared by Gabriel’s more subtle slow numbers, Genesis’ melancholy moments like Entangled, and the emotion Hollis would display on something like April 5th, the song named after his wife’s birthday on The Colour Of Spring.

RIP Mark Hollis. Cousin-in-law. Wonderful husband and father. Fascinating and principled man. Retired from the music business 20 years ago but an indefinable musical icon. The band began at first as part of the popular synth-pop movement of the 80s but garnered more art-house influences as they experimented and improvised with a range of diverse styles and instrumentation. Hollis’ musical and spiritual quest could never have happened if it wasn’t for the collaborators around him. Hollis was an arranger and sampler of sound; he wasn’t a technical virtuoso. Talk Talk may be the visionary sound of one extraordinary mind, but it came about through collective effort – the sounds didn’t come from Hollis, and Hollis couldn’t create it alone. This journey came with a price, though; people were left drained, felt abused, and had their egos bruised. But there was never space for the ego on such a spiritual quest anyway – least of all Hollis’ own.Many have taken online to pay tribute to the influential musician on social media including the musician’s cousin, Anthony Costello, Paul Webb – his former band mate – and Tim Pope, who directed Talk Talk’s music videos. In the last two years when we have been in this cultural, financial, and personal sandstorm, it’s no wonder music has been even more of a solace to so many. Mark Hollis’ voice is like some kind of gateway to emotional release. When you watch and listen to great musicians who resonate with you, they teach you and show you a different way of doing something. They show you a place you hadn’t seen before and it’s most likely they probably had the same doubts and fears as you in the process. The beauty of music is that these moments exist everywhere. There’s so much to take in and I think each band or songwriter comes to you when the time is right, which isn’t necessarily when they were in their most recognized era. But I do think that Talk Talk are a band who grow with reverence each year and with every play, and with that, Mark Hollis’ voice becomes more imbedded in the wild open field that is music.

Hollis, however, further muddied the water by punctuating interviews with seemingly bizarre references to King Crimson, John Coltrane, Shostakovich and Debussy, all of whose influence was practically invisible. The press were baffled, sometimes aggressively negative, and Hollis’ attitude didn’t help. When a musician works outside the constraints of the musical era the music is made in, some real magic happens. Those last two Talk Talk albums and his solo work are a testament to that. The freestyle Coltrane – esque arrangements are visceral with Hollis’ twist of emotional depth and melodic longing juxtaposed with an almost Junior Kimbrough (if i think of another chord I save it for another song) drone at times. Mark is glorious in his ability to soothe yet unsettle and captivate the listener all simultaneously. It’s simply beautiful and one can’t help but fall in love with his voice and musical vision. A record that floors me each time." Parkes, Jason A. (12 May 2007). "Rev. of Mark Hollis, Mark Hollis". Julian Cope Presents Head Heritage . Retrieved 27 June 2009. Ben Wardle, a lecturer in music business at the University of Gloucestershire, has set himself the challenge of getting behind or going over the wall and telling Hollis’ story. The biography is unauthorised and so it is a story told from the outside. The author did not speak to Hollis’ family or have access to private papers, diaries or notebooks. He remains cut off from the inner life of the artist. Had the Colour of Spring on vinyl and wore it out. Haunting, beautiful and ethereal. It sounded like nothing else at the time and was a straight through consumptive listen. Still gets my heart rate up today when I treat myself again to it’s richness. Thank you for the insight.

Baines, Josh (2 February 2018). "How to Disappear Completely: When Musicians Retire For Good". Vice . Retrieved 27 September 2019. a b c d "Mark Hollis, lead singer of Talk Talk, dies at age 64". The Guardian. 25 February 2019 . Retrieved 26 February 2019. Hollis released his first and only solo album, also called Mark Hollis, in 1998. When asked about his decision not to tour anymore or maintain a public persona, he said: “I choose for my family. Maybe others are capable of doing it, but I can’t go on tour and be a good dad at the same time.” He later retired from the music industry, and was little heard from publicly. An article about him last year was headlined “How to disappear completely.” Lees, Alasdair (19 September 2008). "Shearwater, Bush Hall, London". The Independent . Retrieved 27 June 2009.

In the absence of any direct communication from the man himself his admirers sought answers to these riddles and intrigues in his opaque, quasi-mystical lyrics or in interviews he’d given years before. But every music writer who set off “in search of Mark Hollis” soon reached a dead end – or rather slammed into the high protective wall he’d built around his life and work. a b McGee, Alan (9 April 2008). "Wherefore art thou Mark Hollis?". The Guardian . Retrieved 7 May 2018. RIP Mark Hollis. Talk Talk has been an ever-present shadow on the new album and it seems so poignant to hear this news on the eve of mastering. His voice was a thing of distinct fragile beauty and I think we won’t hear his like again anytime soon. ? https://t.co/37Aswhq49j A copy of your data will be held by Loop Publishing Limited (the publishers of Northern Life Magazine) for up to 10 years.It’s probably Hollis’ ‘difficult’ nature that’s the most consequential aspect of this year’s retrospectives. Hollis, Wardle reminds us, could exercise a distinctly ‘laddish’ character, and his pursuit of his goals sometimes showed little regard for those upon whom he depended for their realisation. Zabel, Sebastian (26 February 2019). "Zum Tod von Mark Hollis: Der Mann, der keine Vorbilder brauchte"[To the death of Mark Hollis: The man who did not need role models]. Rolling Stone (in German). Hollis died from cancer [50] in February 2019, [a] aged 64. [6] Initial reports of his death included a tweet from his cousin-in-law, the paediatrician Anthony Costello, [51] and a tribute by Talk Talk's bassist Paul Webb, [6] before his former manager, Keith Aspden, confirmed Hollis's death to the media on 26 February. [52] The group finally cut all ties with the synthesiser era with The Colour of Spring (1986), a powerful and coherent set of songs which delivered the major hit Life’s What You Make It and a slightly lesser hit with Living in Another World. They typified the album’s mix of powerful, spacious rhythms with carefully wrought instrumental colours, topped by Hollis’s pained and yearning vocals. By now Hollis was writing all the material with Tim Friese-Greene, who had been brought aboard for the It’s My Life album as producer and keyboard player. The album was a hit internationally.

When I began the feature I wrote about Mark Hollis for The Wire 167 in 1998 with the words, “Thrill is gone”, it was not just that a case of the November blues had appeared to hang like a pall over our encounter. It was also intended to capture something of the sense of enervation and despair I thought I heard in the solo album he was there unwillingly to promote; a feeling that much of his music occupied a numb emotional lacuna between – to use the prelapsarian imagery he also favoured – the Fall and the expulsion from the Garden.Talk Talk's Mark Hollis Resurfaces With New Music for the Kelsey Grammer TV Show "Boss", Pitchfork.com, Retrieved 1 September 2012. Talk Talk disbanded in 1991. In 1998, Hollis released a self-titled solo debut album, Mark Hollis. [26] In an interview at the time, he said: "To me the ultimate ambition is to make music that doesn't have a use by date, that goes beyond your own time." [27] He also said: "Technique has never been an important thing to me. Feeling always has been, and always will be, above technique." [28]