Talk Talk - "Laughing Stock"

It's silent in some parts, and overwhelmingly noisy in others.

It's often mesmerizing and sometimes atonal.

It might just be "post-rock", whatever the fuck that is.

It is "Laughing Stock", Talk Talk's final album, and unlike any other I've heard...

"Verve Records is said to have taken the album's title as an insult, thinking that the band were trying to make a laughing stock out of them by having them release such a blatantly non-commercial album."
-Wikipedia article

"A work of staggering complexity and immense beauty, Laughing Stock remains an under-recognized masterpiece, and its echoes can be heard throughout much of the finest experimental music issued in its wake."-Allmusic review

See, Talk Talk began as a fairly everyday pop group (so I'm told...I've not heard the early stuff). Yet, somehow, in 1991, they arrived (ascended/descended?) at this. This...jazz-influenced, frightening, relaxing(?) mess. They lost their record deal over such an inaccessible record, and soon disbanded.

Facts about "Laughing Stock":
-It's been compared to Miles Davis's "In A Silent Way" more than once, and probably more than twice.
-It features seven violinists.
-All seven violinists brushed their teeth on a daily basis.
-Mark Hollis supposedly used candles and incense to set an appropriate mood at the record sessions.
-I wouldn't hesitate to put it on a list of my sixteen or so favorite albums.

-I can easily pronounce four out of the six song titles; two of them I have trouble with.

Anyway, I feel a bit obligated to describe the music here, but I find it a rather difficult task. For one thing, it's forty-three minutes and twenty-three seconds long. It's bookended by tracks of near-silence, but haunting beauty. I feel really pretentious describing it like this, but It's really nothing I'd want to bounce along to on a sunny freeway - it demands headphone use in an empty room. At night. In a cave. With a dead parakeet in your pocket.

It's often improvisational, but strangely percussion-oriented. For example, listen to that cymbal-filled awkward 7/4 rhythm on "Ascension Day" - is the guitar player listening to the same song? Does he have a permit to be making noise like that? The harmonica, the organ, the tension-filled vocals....it all leads up to a rather indescribable cacophony.

"Weighted my hand
Kill the bet
I'll burn on judgement day
Weighted my hand
Get hard hit to sin to sail"


The ending is noisy noisy noisy, but then it becomes just that - an ending. So sudden. Leading right into the humming piano notes and organs (?)of "After the Flood". I suppose this is an epic trip-hop song if I ever heard one. The booming drum beat wouldn't sound out of place on an A Tribe Called Quest record. The vocals wait over two minutes to come in, as Mark Hollis mumbles his vague lyrics of death and reincarnation. Some sort of release arrives at just over three minutes, as Hollis urges us to "respect to be born". The guitar solo seems to consist of a chord plugging in and out, with a bit of echo and wha-wha on top. And there's an organ solo, which kills me. But eventually it fades out. It really does.

"Taphead" also deserves it's own paragraph. And man, oh man, is it a slow burner! A vague low-key guitar riff, some mumbled lines that make Michael Stipe sound like Tina Turner, more vague lyrics dealing with religion and redemption. But it builds up, as slow burners often do. The trumpets are loud and echoey, but also haunting and dissonant. There's a feedback guitar bleeding, a trumpet ringing, and so much bizarre dissonance. Speaking of dissonance, I dare you not to get chills at the 6:08 mark.

And speaking of redemption, "New Grass" seems to speak on the subject. More 7/8 rhythms. More religious lyrics.

"Lifted up
Reflected in returning love you sing
Heaven waits
Someday Christendom may come"


Damn, it's like Scott Stapp decided to join the party.

Talk Talk's final album is pretty wonderful, but don't take my word for it...