Talk Talk - Laughing Stock
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Free Music Notes for Laughing Stock
Free Music Review: 45 minutes of obscure, free-from ambience: sheer brilliance!
Hit: 5 Stars
Talk Talk were dropped by EMI after a row over their previous album, the equally brilliant SPIRIT OF EDEN. They turned to Polydor's jazz label, Verve, to release their final album, but executives on the label must have despaired when they realised they had acquired some of the most uncommercial music ever recorded by a rock band. The album was deleted within three months!Fortunately another label has stepped in to rescue this extraordinary piece. Talk Talk had already entered into studio lore for spending a long and expensive day recording a large brass section, keeping only the sound of a trumpeter clearing spit from his mouthpiece.
This is dark music, set to Mark Hollis's lyrics about sin and redemption. I don't bother too much with words personally -- Hollis never makes it very easy for us to follow what his fragile voice is singing about. The music is simply tremendous: spiritual, improvisatory, overflowing with ideas. This is Hollis's LOVE SUPREME. It is in the same vein, but in my view much better, than Radiohead's KID A.
Free Music Review: a living, breathing work of ART
Hit: 5 Stars
Laughing Stock, like its predecessor Spirit Of Eden, is so wholly satisfying on every possible level that it makes me wonder why I need anything else in my life. It is an undeniable masterpiece of modern art, and I think that is the key to getting the most out of this album--one must not think of Laughing Stock as a musical release or collection of compositions - it is a painting, a sculpture, a living, breathing work of ART that can only come alive when processed through your ears. Everytime I hear this album, my mind always paints a very vivid fresco that I cannot describe--Laughing Stock (and again, Spirit Of Eden) is the only album I've ever heard that makes me think like that. I don't think I've ever actually heard the album, but I have certainly seen it many, many times, and it is a work of uncompromising and utterly perfect beauty. To me, this defines art.
If someone said to me "Laughing Stock is hands down the greatest album ever made" I would not argue with them.
Free Music Review: The Greatest Band Create the Greatest Album
Hit: 5 Stars
"Place my chair at the back room door", says the plaintiff Mark Hollis. This time around he and his crew of true journey men take "form" and throw it out the window. Another masterpiece by these wonderful musicians, who can make life rise and eternity stretch forever. It is an obvious move onward from "Spirit", but yet again they give us something new. The one minute, one note guitar solo by Hollis is definatley a plus. Every song on this album is unique and utterly indefinable. We banter around words, but words will never do this or any TT album justice. From "Taphead" to "New Grass" the music moves and mutates into tiny fragments of life as we know it. Sadness, Loss, Joy, lifes ever changing views. If I ever tried to describe this album I would say "The World wrapped into fourty five minutes." From feedback to freedom, from melody to mood, from here to eternity!Free Music Review: The dust is removed
Hit: 5 Stars
After a listening break of a couple of years (5 or 6), I finally put in back in my cd player and find their music really up to date now, not experimental anymore.I don't really like the music on song "Myrrhman" too slow, too minimalist BUT Mark Hollis voice is so beautiful that it makes me forget it.
On the other side, I enjoy every single notes on song "Ascension day", everything is at the right place (instruments used - singing). It is just slow or entangled when it's needed.
"After the flood" makes me think of "Breathe" by "Pink Floyd" probably because of effects at the begining.
"Taphead" is a dark and gloomy song. Starts in a slow lament then moves in some kind of gravity (seriousness) and moves to a liberation. Fabulous! The cheerful "New grass" can only be highly appreciated. Set at the right place on the album.
Free Music Review: Talk Talk - Laughing Stock
Hit: 5 Stars
Probably the most beautiful rock CD I own, Talk Talk's LAUGHING STOCK is the swan song of the band who is credited for founding the post-rock genre. A marvelous thing about LAUGHING STOCK is that it doesn't sound like it was made in any particular decade; it is a truly timeless album. Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Green gathered some magnificent studio musicians recorded LAUGHING STOCK in much the same way as they did on the previous album Spirit of Eden. Highlights include the minimalistic opener "Myrrhman," "Ascension Day," and "After the Flood" with its quiet but powerful organ parts and slightly swinging drum beat. Along with SPIRIT OF EDEN, LAUGHING STOCK represents Talk Talk at their creative peak. This album still stubbornly holds its place as one of my top 10/desert-island discs.