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Mark Hollis: A Perfect Silence

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In Breës’ documentary, meanwhile, Ian Curnow recalls having his fingers tied together and being forced to play keyboards for hours in considerable discomfort, and it’s clear that, though this indignity is usually cast as ingenious by Hollis’ fans, the memory is far from welcome, and that this fate’s sometimes attributed to Nigel Kennedy instead probably hasn’t helped. Talk Talk's Mark Hollis Resurfaces With New Music for the Kelsey Grammer TV Show "Boss", Pitchfork.com, Retrieved 1 September 2012. Marks music has haunted me from the second I heard the first notes and his completely unique voice, until this very day forty years later. There's something indefinable in it that always grabs me and never lets go. I'm heart broken by his too early passing. 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. There are, too, more than a few hints of bitterness from those who feel their contributions were undervalued, especially those who believe they were due songwriting cuts – “[Manager] Keith and Mark are both ruthless,” Brown told me – and one can’t help wondering whether the silence around Hollis has roots in people’s determination not to get involved in debates about his demeanour.

Wardle has interviewed Keith Aspden, Talk Talk’s former manager; Mark Feltham, the harmonica player and one of Hollis’ most trusted session musicians; and Phill Brown, the audio engineer who worked on the great albums. They help him fill in some of the gaps in the story: where Hollis was living at certain times; how the albums were recorded and in what circumstances (rumours about opium-laced sessions during the recording of Spirit of Eden are shown to be nonsense); and what it was like to be around Hollis – sometimes fun and sometimes maddening. It’s a conventional work about an unconventional musician. It is diligent, sceptical when it needs to be, well reported, authoritative and written from the heart. From 1981 to 1992 Hollis fronted Talk Talk and achieved commercial success with their experimental synth-pop hits like ‘Talk Talk’, ‘It’s My Life’ and ‘Such a Shame’. The band would go on to record five full-length studio albums during their active years with Hollis himself releasing a solo record in 1998 before retiring. But Hollis remains unknowable. He was always reluctant to speak candidly about his life even to those closest to him – sometimes he would sit with a friend in a pub in complete silence – and so Wardle’s interviews reveal something about how he was perceived but not much about how it was to be Mark Hollis. “At the base of it all, he had a really gentle, kind, sweet character, but was capable of great cruelty and ignorance at the same time,” one long-time collaborator said.A copy of your data will be held by Loop Publishing Limited (the publishers of Northern Life Magazine) for up to 10 years. Seven years later, Talk Talk founder Mark Hollis resurfaced with his debut solo album Mark Hollis (1998), only to disappear entirely and never release new music again. Having been silent for 20 years, Mark Hollis died in 2019.

However, Wardle does justice to the story by impinging very little on Hollis' marital life, leaving his wife and sons faceless and undeveloped, just as his subject would have wanted it. 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. I wish I had met Mark as he gave me a real understanding of what real music is. His words have given me faith in dark times, he was taken far too soon ,I just hope he knew how much his words notes etc have left such an imprint on so many of us.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 ? It took its toll on people but gave great results,” Brown continued. “There was divorce, breakdown, it was intense. I have never worked on more focused sessions, though. And no, I would not work in the dark again.” The picture which emerges is, admittedly, occasionally uncomfortable, but the truth was always in plain sight if only the myths had cleared. “Having worked with a number of artists in my former life as an A&R person,” Wardle pithily points out, “my experience is that most of them have teeth when it comes to their music. You simply don’t sustain a career by being nice to everyone. Unless you’re Dave Grohl, anyway.” His cousin-in-law tweeted: “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.” Later, he thanked what he described as a “lovely response” from Hollis’“many fans” on social media.

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