Composer Reacts to Talk Talk - The Rainbow / Eden / Desire (REACTION & ANALYSIS)
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- čas přidán 12. 12. 2021
- Bryan reacts to and talks about his thoughts on The Rainbow (1997 Remaster), Eden (1997 Remaster), Desire (1997 Remaster)
ORIGINAL VIDEO // • The Rainbow (1997 Rema...
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"Lots of nothing!!!" "Lots of NOTHING!!!" Every note, every breath, every crescendo, every silence, every nuance, every sounding .... on this utterly sublime masterpiece, is filled and overflowing with musicality and Majesty.
Oh so true! You couldn't be more precise.
Took something from Miles here. Is music the noise or the silence? Is a fishing net holes held together by string or string held together by holes.
Is what is important in life the noise or the silence?
Truly a masterpiece of an album
'Before you play two notes, play one. And if you've got no good reason to play one note, leave a silence' Mark Hollis.
Great quote that sums up Hollis's musical philosophy with Talk Talk and his solo album. It reminds me a lot of classic Eastern art where there was a tradition of leaving large stretches of the canvas blank so that the void would speak as loudly and profoundly as the painting itself.
@@jonathanhenderson9422 I didn't know of this philosophy, but it certainly chimes with Talk Talk's ethos!
I bought this record when it came out,thank you wrvu , Vanderbilt's college radio station, now still an independent music station that plays a plethora of choices,, I'm 64 years young young young young, but part of my soul may be old,, time's passage has many gifts to bestow upon an open mind, nothing is easy but everything is worth it, this is one of the greatest albums ever made ,in my humble opinion,, put it on, lay down , just listen, don't talk, talk, it's a universe contained for two sides, and so beautiful in all its aspects,,,it makes me cry sometimes when i listen to it, good tears, cleansing, washing everything away,,,then listen again,, happy 2024 world, planet earth,, this year let's right the wrongs, and practice forgiveness and acceptance, peace out my fellow humans
It is probably difficult to understand Spirit of Eden without having the personal experiences of what it is about. If you are young and life has mostly been good to you - lucky you! Sooner or later, something will not go as you expected or planned - the one way or the other - and you will make new experiences. These experience will add new layers, texture and depth to your life and there seem to be no hiding from them. Life can be challenging and the emotions that we face when we are exposed to these experiences are thoroughly expressed in the music of this album. Spirit of Eden is an evergreen, an outstanding piece of art that should not be squeezed into a specific music genre. The songs on this album are sometimes melancholic, sometimes raw, sometimes repetitive, sometimes hopeless and if you listen carefully, you will even find joy and happiness - here and there. Spirit of Eden is full of unexpected turns and surprises - so is life.
Personally, I don't have to have similar experiences to what's in any music I listen to in order to love and appreciate it. Sometimes it takes multiple listens to get into something. Other times I instantly enjoy it. Sometimes I need to be exposed to other kinds of music first that opens my mind and broadens my palate and then when I relisten at a later date (months or even years later) it sounds good to me. Based on what I've seen of this reactor, he seemingly enjoys pretty conventional stuff so things that are off the beaten path of what he's used to he doesn't really take to 🤷🏽♀️
One of the best albums EVER made, nights and nights listening to it, alone, by the fire. Love the silences on it, Mark's voice...a work to let oneself fall into it.
20:34 How influential is this album? It's impossible to imagine Sigur Rós, Bon Iver, Alt-J and definitely Radiohead without Spirit of Eden. Don't take my word for it, ask them.
Slint, Bark Psychosis, Tortoise, Junior Boys, These New Puritans
Spirit Of Eden is my favourite album of all time. For me, it is about the sound world and the mosaic of intricate noises and moments that take you on the emotional ride - very much as Jonathan describes in his comment. The "song" is just framework for these moments to exist in. It requires deep listening and no distractions to truly live within the space. Mark Hollis and co famously created the basic song structures and then invited a host of guest musicians to improvise and then collated and refined these moments to give us the finished product. Also after reading engineer Phill Brown's book it seems that it caused a huge amount of stress on all involved. Fascinating that the end of result could feel the polar opposite.
I know it sounds pretentious but so many people have referred to this album as a religious experience. It is inward looking and reflective to an extreme degree, in fact I'm not sure I would feel comfortable listening to this with any else around. I'm not really what that means but I think that's why people refer to it as religious - it feels private and sacred.
I think it has almost nothing to do with rock music, however, I do feel the dissonance and tension instruments (distorted guitar, harmonica) are essential. They create a perfect contrast to the beautiful elements, sometimes threatening to overwhelm them. Mark's solo album from 1998 is totally acoustic and does not include these elements and I don't find it half as compelling.
Finally I also want to say well done for such thoughtful comments and intelligent analysis on something you don't really care for but which you clearly understand that many do.
Indeed, it is so much more than music
The Rainbow is one of the greatest songs of all time in my opinion
Great analysis. I personally really enjoy Talk Talk's last two albums but they are slow burns and quite sparse. Knowing a little bit about your preferences I can see why they would not completely appeal to you. You might like their more transitional album The Colour of Spring. The sound is a lot more lush and melodic, but it also foreshadows of what's to come.
Their last 2 albums are great but it killed them commercially.Not that they cared.
It sounds like you're coming to this album threw the lens of structure. I understand the value of that, although I think this is not the kind of method this album lends itself to.
For example, you were having doubts about the thematic development, you couldn't find some kind of narrative cohesiveness. They made choices you didn't like and you were trying understand WHY, right?
I think the answer might be very simple, and that is, because they felt that way. This is a feel album
In other words, I think everything about what it looks like, is born of the circumstances they were living in the moment, while they were recording this stuff. In a studio, for months in end, with the lights out, in the dark. Often times improvising
The story of what it meant to record this album might help you understand it more, if you're still interested despite it not being of your taste musically speaking.
Personally it's one of my favorite albums. I'd rather have this than bread if I got stranded on an island
Did enjoy this. Maybe especially the harmonica.
The compilation album Asides Besides also has some great tracks recorded around this time like “It’s Getting Late in the Evening”, “John Cope” and “For What It’s Worth”.
There is matter and anti-matter. This song is anti-matter! The music reveals the other side of musicality by presenting an unusual sonority. It is chaotic but orderly, it is quiet and noisy. The voice and its sweet posture give us hope for an unexpected baseness.
Talk Talk. Best Band Ever,....... But nobody has made music like this, theyre almost Hymns in the majesty, and yes, im a Guitar fan, but this......this.....puts goosebumps through you, Hollis actually was, though wouldnt admit to such an overused term, a genius, a quite humble Englishman, the best types, theyre not 'in your face' with brashness.
I think you need to listen to this album and Laughing Stock a few times before you really get them. For me, they are among the greatest rock albums. I also came to them late but after a time when I had already come to understand jazz a bit more. Like jazz, the music on these albums requires something from the listener. A lot of my enjoyment of the music comes from hearing what's deliberately left out or just hinted at. I'd also suggest that while these three songs are as excellent as any, Inheritance and Wealth are far more accessible to someone new to this sound.
It is some of the worst possible music to analyze straight off the bat the first time you hear it.. this is not music you get into by explicitly trying to analyse it. You either get it emotionally through repeated listenings.. or not at all. It certainly is not everyone´s taste. The only objectively wrong thing about your reaction/analysis is that it´s somehow a record "of its time".. nothing could be more wrong. It has been much more appreciated in later decades. It just isn´t music for everyone. As simple as that.
Spirit of Eden is such a great album. Some would say it’s the start of Post- Rock, but however you define it, it’s majestic. I Believe In You is also a beautiful track.
That build-up from 11:30 - 13:30 they do a few times sounds so much like the velvet underground's beginning to heroin
I never noticed that until you pointed it out lol
Why the obsession with understanding? This is paralysis by analysis and nothing more!
Absolutely one of my favourite albums. And I never really liked talk talk before hearing this album
all that nothing sets up that criminally underrated harmonica solo! Life changing event lol
Think of their discography like Colour of Spring as Radiohead's OK Computer. And Spirit of Eden as Kid A. There are precursors from one to the next, yet they are nowhere near identical. Mark Hollis leaned on the ideology of playing one note correctly instead of playing a bunch of notes incorrectly. He believes silence brings out emotion and longing for that right note. It didnt hit me on the first 3 listens. Try it again.
Talk Talk basically started as a Duran Duran ripoff band but became a very successful one on It's My Life. Their follow-up album, Color of Spring, was even more successful, though a definite evolution and more in the realm of what I'd call art-pop. Its success inspired their label to give Talk Talk carte blanche on their next album, and somehow they emerged with The Spirit of Eden (and Laughing Stock after it). I honestly can't think of another example in the history of popular music where a band/artist made such a drastic sonic change (maybe Tom Waits on Swordfishtrombones comes closest), basically giving the middle finger to their label and saying "we're going to make ART, dammit!"
I will admit I hadn't heard much post-rock before I heard this, and in a way I'm very glad because it meant I could hear it with completely fresh ears with no expectations, other than knowing that some critics considered it a masterpiece. I remember walking away from my first listen being completely flabbergasted, and even today after so many listens and having heard a lot of later post-rock I still listen with astonishment. These albums are so sparse, and each moment is given such weight and significance because of that austerity, that it's as if every sound is a small victory won against the abyss. That, I think, is where the primary appeal lies. That kind of sparseness either draws you in and makes those climaxes all the more powerful by contrast or it doesn't. I will give a mention to my favorite moment: that build-up in Eden that erupts with the "noise" guitar moment until it releases the tension with that super dry drum beat. It does this three times, but on the third time there's that huge swell afterwards that never fails to give me chills. It sounds like the purest cry of... I'm not even sure. Is it anguish and despair, or joy and relief? I don't know, but it does something to me on a deeply spiritual level.
Knowing how you feel about slow burns I had a feeling this might bounce off you, and that's OK but I thought it was worth you hearing if only for the historical context, for appreciating how the genre itself came about. You might enjoy Colour of Spring a lot more, as Plokky said. As always with the history of genres it's hard to pinpoint the exact moment where they start, but I'm comfortable calling this the origin of post-rock. There are definitely precursors and influences--post-rock in general borrows heavily from minimalism and ambient music, e.g.--but this still feels like something new and unique. As for how successful they were, probably less than Green Day, but both It's My Life and Colour of Spring were Top 5 in many countries (especially in Europe), so they were definitely successful enough that they were risking the significant fanbase they'd built up.
Such a great novella once more! 😍
"These albums are so sparse, and each moment is given such weight and significance because of that austerity, that it's as if every sound is a small victory won against the abyss."
This is the big divider for this series of song, I think. As a listener, one either feels this exact concept and falls in love or misses it and is underwhelmed -- and I fell into the latter (at least on a first listen). Sometimes I wonder how different my reactions would be if I listened to some of these songs casually first, with no expectations of understanding, and then recorded a second listen for the purpose of analysis. Because to me this falls into the category of songs that should be felt. There's not a lot of technical aspects going on to breakdown but there is an ocean of emotion to be enveloped in.
@@progperljungman8218 :)
@@CriticalReactions I've often thought that's the case with a lot of tracks that bounce off you. I think I've said before that I always try to make my first listens a pure aesthetic/emotional experience, and if the music moves me on that level then I'll go back and analyze on repeat listens. Of course, it's difficult to ever completely turn off your analytical side once you've trained it to hear certain things, but I also go back to Tool's quote in Lateralus that "overthinking, overanalyzing separates the body from the mind, withering my intuition leaving opportunities behind."
Fantastic
Excellent
Spirit of Eden and their follow up album Laughing Stock are sacred ground recordings to me. Challenging for the first listenings until the listener stops trying too hard to "get it". From there they can be absorbed and welcomed as breathing works of life and creativity.
Parlaphone had ongoing lawsuits against the band claiming that Spirit of Eden was uncatagorizable and unmarketable. Monumental works are what they are. It'd very understandable how these recorded works don't sit comfortably for a lot of people.
Driving on a rainy day music.
As a short addition I'll say that Talk Talk have always been polarizing, even more so in the late 80s. Critics either considered this a masterpiece and the future of music or absolute trash. Most of the 5-star reviews you see now are retrospective with critics writing about it decades after seeing/understanding the impact it had on later bands; but you can still see 1-star reviews from, eg, the '92 edition of Rolling Stone's Album Guide.
I know that this is considered the start of post-rock, however, in fact I think the term can first be traced to a review or article by Simon Reynolds (UK music critic) involving a number of early 90s UK bands that were heavily influenced by late period Talk Talk (Bark Psychosis, Disco Inferno, Seefeel, Main, Butterfly Child). All of these bands were very experimental and did not conform to the modern definition of post rock (Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky et al). I remember Tortoise and most of the Chicago scene were lumped in under the umbrella and most of them hated it, so I don't think we should get too hung up on the genre. I do however believe this album (and Laughing Stock) are hugely influential on a certain type of musician - especially from the UK.
you have to listen to it more than once
I was 18 in 1988. I still would have to think back, because I didn't hear this album then. I can say that Radiohead wasn't that long after - 1993? Tears For Fears would be the closest to this band - and more in the mid 1980s when TFF's Songs From the Big Chair came out, and The Colour of Spring by Talk Talk kind of overlap in their release. Songs From the BIg Chair was SO huge, it may be why I didn't hear Colour of Spring in it's time because the TFF album kind of eclipsed it? In Duran Duran's tribute to Hollis on Twitter when he passed they also mention this album. I could see just a tiny bit of that experimentation in the Big Thing album they released in 1989 - a year after the album. In fact every band that posted about Hollis's death mentions this album as a standout, brave, influential, etc.
I can't imagine their record company was thrilled with this album for the obvious reasons, (it was their last) but there is no doubt other musicians had massive respect for Mark Hollis. Maybe with the three pieces named after "bible concepts" - are named purely because these themes are part of most mythologies people are familiar with all over the world no matter what language you speak. Perhaps it's an attempt at communication that is more Jungian - rather than interpreting the choice of titles as literal bible themes. Does that makes sense? In other words, and I could be wrong, it doesn't have to mean that he was attempting to convey church going religious themes.
Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock are right up there with In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew.
Find me another Hollis. You just can't do it man!
It's really unfair to throw this at someone for a cold reaction.
Edit: Not to say the reaction was bad, just saying there is a lot here to chew on.
this is the masterpiece of the century! hollis is exploring the silence
I believe you already did Desire. Also the follow-up (and final) album Laughing Stock is somehow even better than this one.
You're right. Desire was in the August Livestream. Wow, I didn't remember that at all. It's funny because the artwork looked familiar and I searched my videos to see if I'd done something from it before but no search results came back for "talk talk." I'm interested in seeing how they developed this sound into Laughing Stock though.
Yes, I actually prefer Laughing Stock by a slight margin. Sacred ground recordings either way.
To my ear, there's a fair bit of cross-over with a bands I know better like 'The The' and 'Tears for Fears' both of whom I think were contemporary to one degree or another. I also immediately felt a connection to the recent Perfume Genius track you analysed, though it's not remotely contemporary. New Wave met Northern Soul at a Jazz cafe and these were all the result, I reckon. I also think the connection to Trip-Hop you were alluding to is apt, though I'd have guessed they were being influenced by this band.
I agree, and have said this on another channel where their music was explored in depth, on the comparison with Tears For Fears. In fact, I think that may be why I didn't know much about The Colour of Spring album until much later in 1994. That album and Songs From The Big Chair almost overlap each other with Songs From The Big Chair reaching such huge heights in 85/86 it may have eclipsed Talk Talk's record and was why I didn't come across it in the US. That's a shame because I've only now discovered them on a deeper level in the past year. I became aware of Life's What You Make it.. only in 1994 when buying a best of alternative 80s compilation disc.In 1994 there was already a nostalgia for early/mid 80s music - but I STILL didn't hear enough of their later stuff until I came across deep dives on CZcams. Yes, it also feels like a prelude to Trip-hop which I love. Massive Attack - Mezzanine which I know left Critical Reactions a bit miffed.
1988
"Spirit of Eden" is (in my opinion) the most inspired album ever birthed and gifted to humanity, and "Wealth" (the closing song therein) being the most beautiful and prayerful I have ever heard.
LOL tell me a modern post-rock band that's better than this, please i would like to hear it
there are none, they use crescendos cynically and could never get to the level of depth in every sense of the word that talk talk had