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Spirit of Eden

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Spirit of Eden is a 1988 album by the English band Talk Talk. It was written by Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene, and performed by numerous musicians using a diverse combination of instruments. It is widely regarded as a masterpiece. One critic recently wrote: "Spirit of Eden has not dated; it's remarkable how contemporary it sounds, anticipating post-rock, The Verve and Radiohead. It's the sound of an artist being given the keys to the kingdom and returning with art."[1]

The album emerged from a demanding recording process: often working in darkness, the band recorded many hours of improvised performances, edited them down heavily, then arranged the remaining pieces into an album using digital equipment. The end product includes elements of rock, jazz, classical, and ambient music. The album was released on the Parlophone record label, an imprint of EMI.

Critics often view Spirit of Eden as a departure from Talk Talk's previous albums. Compared to their 1986 hit The Colour of Spring, it was commercially unsuccessful. Many critics, however, praise the album and consider it influential to the post-rock movement of the 1990s.

Background

Talk Talk, led by singer Mark Hollis, formed in England in the early 1980s. From the start, Hollis cited jazz and classical artists like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Béla Bartók, and Claude Debussy as major musical influences. But Talk Talk's first two albums, The Party's Over (1982) and It's My Life (1984), did not readily reflect such influences; critics compared the band to contemporary New Wave groups, especially Duran Duran. Hollis partly attributes the shortcomings of their early music to a financial need to use synthesizers in place of acoustic instruments.

Although critics did not favour the band's early output, the first two albums were commercially successful in Europe. This gave Talk Talk the money needed to hire additional musicians to play on their next album, The Colour of Spring (1986). The band no longer had to rely on synthesizers. Instead, musicians improvised with their instruments for many hours, then Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene edited and arranged the performances to get the sound they wanted. A total of sixteen musicians appeared on the album. The Colour of Spring became Talk Talk's most successful album, selling over two million copies and prompting a major world tour.[2] At the same time, minimalist songs like "April 5th," "Chameleon Day," and the outtake "It's Getting Late in the Evening" pointed towards the band's next direction.[3]

Recording

It was very, very psychedelic. We had candles and oil wheels, strobes going, sometimes just total darkness in the studio. You'd get totally disorientated, no daylight, no time frame.

Phill Brown, Engineer[4]

For the success of The Colour of Spring, EMI rewarded Talk Talk with an open budget and schedule for the recording of their next album, Spirit of Eden.[5] Talk Talk was given complete control over the recording process; their manager and EMI executives were barred from studio sessions.[6] Recording for Spirit of Eden began in 1987 at Wessex Studios, London and took about a year to complete.[7]

Contract dispute with EMI

By early March 1988, the band had finished recording Spirit of Eden and had sent a cassette of the album to EMI. After listening to the cassette, EMI representatives doubted that it could be commercially successful. They asked Hollis to re-record a song or replace material, but he refused to do so. By the time the masters were delivered later in the month, however, the label conceded that the album had been satisfactorily completed.[8]

Despite their reservations towards Spirit of Eden, EMI chose to exercise their option to extend the recording contract with Talk Talk. The band, however, wanted out of the contract. "I knew by that time that EMI was not the company this band should be with," manager Keith Aspden told Mojo. "I was fearful that the money wouldn't be there to record another album."[9] EMI and Talk Talk went to court to decide the issue.

The case centred around whether EMI had notified the band about the contract extension in time. As part of the agreement, EMI had to send a written notice within three months after the completion of Spirit of Eden. The band said that EMI had sent the notice too late, arguing that the three month period began once recording had finished; EMI argued that the three month period did not begin until they were satisfied with the recording. Justice Andrew Morritt ruled in favour of EMI, but his decision was overturned in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.[8] Talk Talk were released from the contract and later signed to Polydor.

Marketing and release history

Spirit of Eden's moody, experimental nature made it a challenge to promote; one critic said it "is the kind of record which encourages marketing men to commit suicide."[10] Tony Wadsworth, Parlophone's marketing director at the time, told Q: "Talk Talk are not your ordinary combo and require sympathetic marketing. They're not so much difficult as not obvious. You've just got to find as many ways as possible to expose the music."[11] Evaluating some masterpieces of the eighties in a 2004 article for The Guardian, John Robinson calls Spirit of Eden, like David Sylvian's Brilliant Trees, "triumphant, [but] completely unmarketable."[12]

Although the band did not originally plan to release a single, EMI issued a radio edit of "I Believe In You" in September 1988 (the previously unreleased "John Cope" was included as the B-side). The single failed to breach the UK Singles Chart Top 75. Around November, Tim Pope directed a music video for "I Believe In You", featuring Hollis sitting with his guitar, singing the lyrics. "That was a massive mistake," said Hollis. "I thought just by sitting there and listening and really thinking about what it was about, I could get that in my eyes. But you cannot do it. It just feels stupid."[11]

The band did not tour in support of the album. Hollis explained, "There is no way that I could ever play again a lot of the stuff I played on this album because I just wouldn't know how to. So, to play it live, to take a part that was done in spontaneity, to write it down and then get someone to play it, would lose the whole point, lose the whole purity of what it was in the first place."[13] They would never tour again.

Spirit of Eden was released worldwide in 1988. It did not enjoy nearly as much commercial success as The Colour of Spring. The album spent five weeks on the UK Albums Chart, peaking at #19.[14] The album cover depicts a tree festooned with seashells, snails, birds, and insects. It was illustrated by James Marsh, who did Talk Talk's artwork throughout their career. The booklet provides reproductions of Hollis' handwritten lyrics. The album was digitally remastered by Phill Brown and Denis Blackham in 1997. A hybrid Super Audio CD (without surround sound) surfaced in 2003.

Musical style

Although the album is noted for its tranquil soundscapes, Graham Sutton of Bark Psychosis notes "Noise is important. I could never understand people I knew who liked Talk Talk and saw it as something 'nice to chill out to' when I loved the overwhelming intensity and the dynamics."[15]

Spirit closed with the line "Take my freedom for giving me a sacred love" – it sounded like Hollis had been boning up on the renegade, mystical Christianity of William Blake.

Rob Young, The Wire[16]

Mark Hollis' lyrics contain religious and spiritual references. Though Hollis acknowledges that his lyrics are religious, he says they are not based on a specific religion, preferring to think of them as "humanitarian."[17] "I Believe in You" has been described as an "anti-heroin song."[18] When asked whether the lyrics are based on personal experience, Hollis replied, "No, not at all. But, you know, I met people who got totally fucked up on it. Within rock music there's so much fucking glorification of it, and it is a wicked, horrible thing."[16]

Critical reception

Spirit of Eden has been acclaimed by numerous music critics, though it has also received mixed and negative criticism. Markus Berkmann of The Spectator was uncertain about the album: "It is either a work of immense merit and bravery or a load of bilge, and I cannot decide which."[19] Roy Wilkinson of Sounds, although rating the album highly, thought that the second side was not as good as the first and that the lyrics were a weak point.[20] Chris Dafoe of The Globe and Mail was largely unimpressed: "At its best, this can be evocative and slightly unsettling. More frequently, however, it sounds like dreary New Age miserablism. Yawn Yawn."[21] In the 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide, J.D. Considine rated the album 1 star out of 5: "Instead of getting better or worse, this band simply grew more pretentious with each passing year. . . . by Spirit of Eden, Mark Hollis's Pete Townshend-on-Dramamine vocals have been pushed aside by the band's pointless noodling." Pitchfork Media named Spirit of Eden the 34th best album of the 1980s.[22] In 2006, Q magazine placed the album at #31 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s". [23]

Legacy

Some music critics consider Spirit of Eden and its 1991 follow-up Laughing Stock influential to post-rock, a music genre that developed in Britain and the United States in the 1990s. In a review of Bark Psychosis' album Hex, where the term post-rock was coined, Simon Reynolds opined that Hex aspires to the "baroque grandeur" of Spirit of Eden.[24] Andy Whitman of Paste magazine argues that Spirit of Eden represents the beginning of post-rock: "The telltale marks of the genre—textured guitars, glacial tempos, an emphasis on dynamics, electronica, ambience and minimalism—were all in place, and paved the way for bands like Sigur Rós, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Low, and latter-period Radiohead." Simon Harper of the Birmingham Post adds, "Certainly, their combination of jazz, classical, rock and the spacey echoes of dub, using silence almost as an instrument in its own right, lends itself to the vernacular of post-rock, and there can be little argument that Tortoise and their Chicago-based compatriots would hardly sound the same were it not for the staggering achievements of Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene."[25] Music historian Piero Scaruffi believes that with Spirit of Eden, Talk Talk "invented a new form of music, one in which a complex atmosphere is created out of slow, inorganic, inarticulate streams of simple sounds. The six lengthy, free-form, brooding and cataleptic ruminations . . . pioneered 'slo-core'."[26] Numerous bands and artists, ranging from Catherine Wheel to Sarah McLachlan to Matthew Good, have praised Spirit of Eden or have cited it as an influence in their own music.[27]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Tim Friese-Greene and Mark Hollis

No.TitleLength
1."The Rainbow"9:05
2."Eden"6:37
3."Desire"7:08
4."Inheritance"5:16
5."I Believe in You"6:24
6."Wealth"6:35

The track times reflect the original North American version of the compact disc. UK and European releases of the compact disc present the first three songs, "The Rainbow," "Eden," and "Desire," as a single track, totaling 23:11. The North American version of the album, and subsequent international reissues, divide the suite into three tracks, although they are still presented without an audible break.[28] There is a forced silence of just over 30 seconds between "Desire" and "Inheritance". Working titles of the songs were "Modell," "Camel," "Maureen," "Norm," "Inheritance," "Snow in Berlin," and "Eric."[29]

Personnel

Musicians

Technical

Notes

  1. ^ McGee, "Wherefore art thou Mark Hollis?"
  2. ^ Irvin, "Paradise Regained," 53.
  3. ^ Irvin, The Mojo Collection, 603.
  4. ^ Brown, "Sharing food and conversation with Phill Brown."
  5. ^ Neiss, "Talk Talk."
  6. ^ Irvin, "Paradise Regained," 53.
  7. ^ Sources vary as to the exact duration. Fourteen months is commonly reported, but Phill Brown said they spent nine months at Wessex (Sutherland, "Paradise Regained").
  8. ^ a b EMI Records Limited v Hollis & Others.
  9. ^ Irvin, "Paradise Regained," 54.
  10. ^ Cooper, "Rev. of Spirit of Eden.
  11. ^ a b Devoy, "Come On, Market Me."
  12. ^ Robinson, "Pieces of Eighties."
  13. ^ Paradise Regained
  14. ^ Guinness Book of British Hit Albums.
  15. ^ Southall, "Bark Psychosis."
  16. ^ a b Young, "Return from Eden."
  17. ^ Young.
  18. ^ Record Collector bio
  19. ^ Randy's return. Berkmann revisited the album in a later article, but said "I still don't know."
  20. ^ sounds review
  21. ^ Globe and Mail
  22. ^ Pitchfork: Top 100 Albums of the 1980s, page 7
  23. ^ Q August 2006, Issue 241
  24. ^ Reynolds.
  25. ^ Harper, 11.
  26. ^ Scaruffi, 237.
  27. ^ DeMain; Dickinson.
  28. ^ Irvin, "Paradise Regained," 53.
  29. ^ Brown, "The Colour of EQing."

References

  • Brown, Phill. "The Colour of EQing." Within Without, November 12, 1998.
  • ———. Interview by Larry Crane and Chris Eckman. "Sharing food and conversation with Phill Brown." Tape Op, Spring 1999.
  • Cooper, Mark (October 1988). "Rev. of Talk Talk, Spirit of Eden". Q (magazine). Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Devoy, Adrian (1988). "Come On, Market Me". Q (magazine). Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • EMI Records Limited v Hollis & Others (Court of Appeal (Civil Division) 1989-05-23).
  • Guinness Book of British Hit Albums. 7th Edition. ISBN 0-85112-619.
  • Harper, Simon. "The whispers and crescendos of the Spirit of Eden." The Birmingham Post, August 24, 2005, 11.
  • Irvin, Jim, ed. "Talk Talk: Spirit Of Eden" in The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time. Edinburgh: Canongate Books, Mojo Books, 2001.
  • ———. "Paradise Lost." Mojo, February 2006, 50–56.
  • McGee, Alan (2008-04-09). "Wherefore art thou Mark Hollis?". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Neiss, James (December 1991). "Talk Talk". Record Collector. Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Pitchfork Staff (2002-11-20). "Top 100 Albums of the 1980s". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Reynolds, Simon. Review of Hex, by Bark Psychosis. Mojo, March 1994.
  • Robinson, John (2004-04-24). "Pieces of Eighties". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Rozsa, Ferenc (2004-05-10). "Talk Talk Discography". Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Smith, Andrew (November 1988). "Talk Talk talk". International Musician and Recording World. Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Southall, Nick (2004-07-26). "Bark Psychosis". Stylus Magazine. Retrieved 2009-06-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  • Sutherland, Steve. "Dawn Rising." Review of Spirit of Eden, by Talk Talk. Melody Maker, September 17, 1988, 38.
  • ———. "Paradise Regained." Melody Maker, September 24, 1988, 8.
  • ———. "Talk Talk: Silencing the Scams." Melody Maker, September 7, 1991, 40.
  • Young, Rob. "Return from Eden." The Wire, January 1998, 26.
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