cd - Spirit of Eden

Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk

This is a really dark and sad record. I came to this one very late and had a four month period of listening to it non-stop. Band leader/singer/songwriter Mark Hollis created the record with Tim Friese-Greene, employing a slew of musicians and taking over a year to record it (mostly in the dark). It was the non-commercial follow-up to the commercially successful The Colour of Spring. It is a masterpiece, it's got an amazing amount of disparate sounds that were pieced together mostly from the first take improvisations of studio musicians and then edited into a beautiful, cohesive statement. The first three songs were meant to be one piece that would occupy the a-side of the album. There is a part in there that sounds a lot like Heroin by the Velvet Underground and there are rumors that heroin addiction is the underlying influence on the material. I read somewhere that Mark's older brother Ed died from either drug or alcohol abuse around this time. Ed Hollis was the manager of and songwriter for Eddie and the Hot Rods (he co-wrote Do Anything You Wanna Do) and he helped shape Mark's musical taste as well as helping him assemble his group and get a record deal. It would make sense if his decline and death was the inspiration, this is a very, very sad record. This is one of those records that is a complete thought rather than a collection of tracks and I can't say enough about it...I love every bit of it and will never get tired of it. Buy it here: Spirit of Eden