Hollis’ musical and spiritual quest could never have happened if it wasn’t for the collaborators around him. Hollis was an arranger and sampler of sound; he wasn’t a technical virtuoso. Talk Talk may be the visionary sound of one extraordinary mind, but it came about through collective effort – the sounds didn’t come from Hollis, and Hollis couldn’t create it alone. This journey came with a price, though; people were left drained, felt abused, and had their egos bruised. But there was never space for the ego on such a spiritual quest anyway – least of all Hollis’ own. 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. After Talk Talk disbanded in 1991, Hollis returned to music in 1998 with a self-titled solo album, which continued the direction of Talk Talk's sound but in a more minimal, sparse, acoustic style. Following the release of his only solo album, Hollis largely retired from the recording industry. He died, aged 64, in February 2019. [6] Biography [ edit ] Early life (1955–1977) [ edit ]

When it comes to Spirit of Eden and LS, it takes listen upon listen to keep hearing new sounds and layers on those recordings. The spine-tingling goosebumps of’ Inheritance’, his voice is immersed in the air. The calm then bombastic nature of ‘Eden’ leaving you transfixed… The rolling percussive freedom of ‘Ascension Day.’ The compelling weight of ‘I believe in you’ leaves you lost for words. Who else could be that expressive that side of silence. The listener is, inside that room yet in their own inner world simultaneously. Lingering there like an eternal twilight hour, the same way in which there is total silence in the sunlight on your face.Furthermore, aside from a handful of collaborations – the last in 2001 on Norwegian-Polish singer-songwriter Anja Garbarek’s beguiling Smiling & Waving – Hollis’ only music since 1998 is less than a minute long: a quasi-baroque instrumental, ARB Section 1, from a 2012 episode of Kelsey Grammar’s poorly performing TV show, Boss. Beyond that, he maintained a watertight public silence. One could be excused for not knowing who Hollis was.

For over two decades, fans have speculated about the manifold inconsistencies at the heart of Hollis’ catalogue, and an almost unprecedented, unrivalled mythology has flourished, with chart-friendly years seemingly incompatible with the complex, commercially doomed style with which he quietly bowed out. So why did a band considered pretenders to Duran Duran’s throne end up spurning the spotlight? As a fan of Talk Talk, admittedly in their (his?!) earlier, less experimental form, I was eager to read this. I knew so little of Mark Hollis, and that was how he liked it, it seems. Based around the chronology of the band's releases, beginning before Talk Talk was their name, it walks a path that deviates here and there to shine light on many of the other people involved with Hollis over the years. There's a little personal information, but upon reading the whole book you'll realise why it's scant. As documentary evidence of the process of recording their albums, this book is invaluable. It goes into just enough nerdy detail to explain events, but not too much that you wish you'd been born a sound engineer. I don't want to spoil anything, but for me personally, at least, I wasn't sure of who Mark was when I began reading, but I felt by the end of it I saw large pieces of his character, his 'way', and how he interacted with others. I could understand many parts of that, and empathised, yet others I couldn't rationalise with expectation. The book is well written, and aside from a few typos in this first edition that were not caught at proofreading stage, the presentation is excellent. My only wish was that there were a few more photos included, particularly ones that are explicitly mentioned in the text. I know at least some could be found from their original sources in the references, but it felt like a missed opportunity. Wardle takes no particular side in his biography; instead, he sides on the collective, presenting to the reader all the myriad voices of those affected by Hollis, from the closest collaborators to people sweeping the recording studio floor. He takes his subject as far as it can possibly go with all the resources available and the result is well balanced He debunks the myths and disproves old falsehoods, but all this only seems to add to Hollis’ complexity and heighten his allure. Hollis never revealed anything about his private life to anyone. Why? Because he, as a person, meant nothing. It was a complete separation of the art from the maker. For Hollis, it was all about devotion to the music. Wardle also points to Phil Ramacon, whose multiple experiences working with Hollis epitomised its pitfalls and pleasures. “He told me how much he enjoyed his company, how Hollis bought him clothes for their shows and would regularly make him cheese on toast in his flat before they went to rehearsals together. But he also told me how he had helped Hollis assemble and write Such A Shame from fragments of cassette ideas. I can’t tell you how much Mark influenced and changed my perceptions on art and music,” he said. “I’m grateful for the time I spent with him and for the gentle beauty he shared with us.”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.