Getty ImagesGetty ImagesF
or most musicians, the
fi rst taste of success
can be intoxicating –
a heady incentive to
pursue its commercial
rewards with even more
conviction. Talk Talk, though,
reacted differently when
compared to most classic
pop bands in the affl uent
80s and, indeed, the majority
before and since. As the band’s
10-year career advanced from
their formation in 1981, they
fi rst slid gently, then swerved
with increasing determination,
towards the left-fi eld. Leaving
behind the radio-friendly pop
of their early work in favour of
an experimental, progressively
more abstract sound, they
alienated fans, baffl ed critics
and, fi nally, ran out of steam.
But that’s because their goal,
instead of fame, was more
precious: “The freedom,” as
frontman Mark Hollis put it
in 1986, “to make a record
exactly how we’d like.”
Spirit Of Eden, Talk Talk’s
fourth album, in 1988,
represented the point where
Hollis, bassist Paul Webb,
drummer Lee Harris and
unoffi cial fourth member,
co-producer and co-writer Tim
Friese-Greene, took a last look
at the promise of wealth and
security that was theirs for theSPIRIT OF EDEN CLASSIC ALBUMPaul Webb, Mark Hollis and Lee Harris.
Tim Friese-Greene, while a vital part of
the band, wasn’t an offi cial member.MARK HOLLIS
The younger brother of Eddie And
The Hot Rods’ manager Ed Hollis, the
inscrutable, Tottenham-born frontman
started out as a punk rocker in The
Reaction, before guiding Talk Talk from early
New Romantic beginnings to the wildly ambitious
realms of their fi nal two albums. Following the
release of Laughing Stock in 1991, Hollis seemingly
disappeared without trace, briefl y emerging in
1998 with a striking, self-titled solo record.
His last released music was a short instrumental in
2012, recorded several years earlier, for Kelsey
Grammer’s post-Frasier TV show Boss. His death
was announced on 24 February. He was 64.TIM FRIESE-GREENE
The producer behind Tight Fit’s The Lion
Sleeps Tonight became an unoffi cial
but vital Talk Talk member as producer,
co-writer and performer from 1984’s It’s
My Life (although he was only an occasional player
on the band’s live tours). His work since the group’sfi nal album, Laughing Stock, has been sparse:
“After Spirit Of Eden, I found it really diffi cult to fi nd
anything that I found challenging enough,” he once
said. Despite suffering from tinnitus, Friese-Greene
currently records under the name Heligoland,
whose last EP, One Girl Among Many, was
released in 2015.PAUL WEBB
Since Talk Talk’s demise, Webb and
Lee Harris have released two albums
of percussive, World Music-infl uenced
improvisations as .O.rang (in 1994
and 1996). Webb has also released music under
the moniker Rustin Man, fi rst with Portishead’s Beth
Gibbons on 2002’s Out Of Season, and more
recently on the 2019 solo LP, Drift Code.LEE HARRIS
Harris has worked alongside Webb
in .O.rang, and drummed on Beth
Gibbons and Rustin Man’s Out Of
Season and Drift Code album. He
also appeared on Norwegian band Midnight
Choir’s Waiting For The Bricks To Fall (2003) and
Codename: Dustsucker by Bark Psychosis (2004).THE
PLAYERStaking, and turned their back
on it. Instead of revelling with
bikini-clad babes on yachts –
like labelmates Duran Duran
had with Rio four years earlier- they walked the plank and
leapt into unknown waters.
Thirty-one years later, Spirit
Of Eden is acknowledged as
one of the most remarkable
LPs ever made. The record’s
mythology was fuelled over the
years by Hollis’ long-standing
resistance in talking about his
art. Consequently, its reputation
is ever-growing. Back then,
however, it was an artistically
startling but commercially
suicidal move, and one that
was – even to those closest to
Talk Talk – unexpected.
Looking back, signs that
they were dissatisfi ed with
contemporary musicalconventions were there from
the start. As early as January
1982, in anticipation of their
debut single, Mirror Man,
Hollis told NME that his synth-
pop group were “closer to a
jazz quartet than a rock band”.
Six months on, he was berating
journalists for comparing them
to Duran Duran rather than Otis
Redding and John Coltrane.
Nonetheless, as they stood
on the brink of international
stardom in the summer of
1986, no one anticipated the
dramatic metamorphosis that
was to come.
By then, Talk Talk had
established themselves with
their 1982 debut album, The
Party’s Over, which charted
in the UK at No.21, and its
follow-up, 1984’s It’s My Life,
which, though less successful
in their homeland, boosted
their profi le across Europe
and the US. Enduring singles
like the title track and Such A
Shame might not have set the
British charts alight, but they’d
earned the band a broad
fanbase and they were now
riding an ever-increasing wave
of popularity on the back of a
third album, 1986’s The Colour
Of Spring. Global hits Life’s
What You Make It and Living In
Another World had smoothed
the transition they’d made
from their early sound towards
something more organic,
and their live reputation