Talk Talk: Laughing Stock (Vinyl LP)

One of the lost gems of the 90s, Talk Talk's final album Laughing Stock has gathered momentum in the hushed tones of music fans' conversations since its release. At long last it has secured a reissue. The record took a year to make yet has required decades to fully appreciate. following up on the abstract Spirit of Eden, which sufficiently alienated pop fans of the band's earlier material, Laughing Stock took spaces in recorded music to new extremes, with layers of silence breathing through strings, woodwinds, percussion and Mark Hollis's delicate vocals.

The record exists as one complete thought, albeit with jagged diversions and tangents. Hollis's and producer Tim Friese-Greene's goal from the beginning was to create an album that completely enveloped the listener.

During recording, microphones were placed at distances as far as 30 feet from the instruments they were recording, and passages were captured with no clear intention as to where they would finally be placed. Before Protools made the cut-and-paste, drag-and-drop process standard in songwriting, Hollis and Friese-Greene were in the studio with flugelhorn and viola players, capturing notes and phrases they collected and combined into the six tracks that became Laughing Stock.

1. Myrrhman
2. Ascension Day
3. After The Flood
4. Taphead
5. New Grass
6. Runeii