The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Talk Talk · produced by Tim Friese-Greene · Verve · six tracks, about 43 minutes
Mode
Rock unmade into edited improvisation; jazz, blues, chamber and church music held in one room
Mythos
Burial, ascension, deluge and new growth: a Christian passage laid down in the titles and carried by the order of the pieces
Phase
Six pieces from near-silence to near-silence: a violence cut off in the second, the storm and the calm of the third and fifth, and a last drain back toward quiet
Presentation
Album; six tracks, about forty-three minutes; the band’s last
Register
Room tone, organ, strings, brass, harmonica, double bass, overdriven guitar and drums barely touched; a voice small, cracked and close
Scale
One voice seeking grace in a space far larger than itself
Governing Proposition
Two musicians and their producer make six pieces out of long takes and silence, under titles that run from burial through ascension and deluge to new growth: a small voice seeking grace in a space far larger than itself. Renewal, the record holds, comes slowly and without climax, after a violence that is not resolved but ended, and the record will not hurry it.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record begins in near-nothing: room hiss, the sound of a space before anything is played in it, and a hesitant guitar. The sound has to be found before it can be used, and the listener is made to wait while it is found. Then string clusters and a few piano chords, and a voice, small, cracked and close. The piece rises to a grave, suspended height and does not leave it in any hurry. The first title names myrrh, the spice given at a birth and used at a burial, and the record opens at the tomb.
Laughing Stock is Talk Talk’s fifth and last studio album. Verve, a Polydor label, issued it in September 1991, after the band had left EMI. It was recorded at Wessex Studios in London over 1990 and into 1991, produced by Tim Friese-Greene and engineered by Phill Brown, and its songs are credited to Mark Hollis and Friese-Greene. The band was by then two men, Hollis and the drummer Lee Harris, the bassist Paul Webb having left after the previous album; the rest is played by session musicians, strings and brass among them. The pieces are reported to have been shaped from long improvised takes, edited by producer and engineer into their finished form.
The architecture is six pieces, about forty-three minutes, running from near-silence to near-silence, and the sequence is argued here once. Myrrhman and Runeii, the shortest pieces, make the frame. Between them stand Ascension Day, the one violent piece; After the Flood and New Grass, each near nine and a half minutes, together nearly half the record, the storm and the calm; and Taphead, the slowest. The order follows the passage its titles name: burial, ascension, deluge, growth, and a closing word. It is the old Christian pattern of death and renewal, and here it is built into the order rather than laid over it.
Movement II
The second piece is the terrible kind of elevation. A stumbling, overdriven ensemble gathers toward frenzy, and at its height it is cut off. There is no fade and no resolution: the sound stops in mid-gesture, and the silence after it is as overwhelming as the sound. The hard cut is the hinge of the whole record. Everything after it is heard in the knowledge that the frenzy was not completed but ended, as if by a hand.
That is the form’s sharpest statement, and the record’s knowledge is in its form. A record about a voice seeking grace in a space far larger than itself is built of sound placed in silence, of a voice set low and indistinct among the instruments, of pieces whose shape is decided by the edit rather than by verse and chorus. Played as songs, these pieces would keep their materials and lose what they know. The listener is left at the end of Ascension Day with what was not completed, and the meaning of the piece is that leaving.
It is also where the making shows its hand. Elsewhere the edits are placed so that the music seems to breathe rather than to have been cut; here the cut is the point, and it is made with a composer’s certainty in the medium of tape. Phill Brown’s engineering keeps the room in every sound, the decay of a note, the space around a drum, the grain of a bowed string, so that the sudden silence after Ascension Day is not empty: it is the room, still there, with nothing sounding in it.
Movement III
The storm is long. After the Flood builds slowly over nearly ten minutes toward a long, distorted, sustained cry, a single held and treated tone that goes on past the point where it could have stopped. It is transport by attrition: the height is reached by enduring, not by arriving. The title places the piece after the deluge, and the sound is of something still passing through it. In its middle the test of necessity bites lightly, where duration is allowed more than required, and the cry redeems the wait.
What the record discloses can be stated, and it is a disclosure, not an atmosphere: a spirit seeking grace after ruin, its voice small inside a vast space, its faith tried and its renewal fragile. The titles name the frame and the sound undergoes it. The cracked voice is set against silences that dwarf it; the violence of the second piece is ended rather than resolved; the third endures its storm. Disclosure through sound is credited as fully as through words, and this record discloses almost wholly through sound.
The limit is in the manner of the disclosure. The condition is rendered with great force and articulated hardly at all. The words are few and sung indistinctly, almost nothing can be stated beyond the humility and the longing, and part of what listeners find in the record is what its withholding invites them to bring. Taphead, which follows, is the record’s least compelled passage: a long quiet opening, then slow brass entering out of near-silence like a weight. Its height is real; its opening is permitted rather than compelled, and the form there serves its slowness without wholly enacting it.
Movement IV
The calm is the summit of the warm register. Lee Harris sets a light, steady pulse and holds it for some nine minutes, and guitar and organ move over it in long, unhurried phrases. Nothing builds. The piece does not peak and does not end in any ordinary way, and its refusal to climb is its content: patience made audible, renewal heard as something that grows rather than arrives. The drumming is restraint made exact.
One law governs the record, and New Grass shows how wide it reaches. Set against Ascension Day, it is the opposite in force and temperature, a frenzy cut off against a pulse that never raises its voice, and both obey the silence that frames them: one is broken off into it, the other moves through it without disturbing it. Blues harmonica, free-jazz noise, string clusters, a brass chorale, a near-hymn and this guitar of pastoral calm all serve the same law. What holds that law from the top is its single tempo of feeling, slow and grave throughout.
The inheritance the record turns from is the band’s own: a synthesiser pop group with hits across Europe in the mid-1980s. Its previous album, Spirit of Eden, had begun the turn; this one went further, leaving verse and chorus, rock instrumentation and the studio’s ordinary method behind, for pieces made of edited improvisation and silence. The stake was paid in full: the band had left its label after a dispute, the record sold little, and the group made no other. The record and its predecessor are reported to stand at the founding of what came to be called post-rock, and later records placed the same bet, Kid A among them. That reach was delayed, ran through musicians more than the public, and is shared with the record before; it is credited and discounted.
Movement V
The record ends by letting sound drain back toward the silence it came from. Runeii is elevation in its faintest form, sound left to decay, and its title is a rune, a closing word in an older script. It was the band’s last recorded statement. Talk Talk made no other record, and Mark Hollis’s solo album followed in 1998; the frame that opened at a tomb closes on growth that is not yet sure of itself, in quiet.
The record has survived whole. It is as issued, its order fixed, and nothing of it is lost. Made of acoustic instruments, organ, brass and strings in a natural room, with almost nothing of the production habits of 1991, it carries no date on its surface, and it has outlived its occasion, the end of a band and a dispute with a label. Its presence is the charge: a commercial failure on release, narrow for years, its standing built later and among musicians and critics more than the public. A record neglected on release has been returned to more with each decade, and its formal depths, a breath, a click, a decaying note, a phrase in one piece answering another, go on surfacing.
What it lacks is breadth. The sacred is held as the whole frame and mood, a single consciousness in its humility, the natural order in a flood and new grass, mortality in the burial spice of the first title; the family, the couple, labour, the state, history and the city are absent, and the orders that are present lie close together. Its myth is a frame with no person to carry it, built in the order and reached by abstraction. Within that narrow scope the holding is deep, and the record ends where it began, in the room, with nothing sounding.
Act III · The Twelve
Six pieces in about forty-three minutes, and the subtractive test is hard to apply, because what a hostile listener would remove is mostly silence, and the silence bears weight. Myrrhman must open: the record begins in room hiss and a hesitant guitar, and the sound has to be found before it can be used. Ascension Day must follow as the one violent piece, and its hard cut is the hinge of the whole. After the Flood and New Grass, the storm and the calm, each require the other, and Runeii drains the sound back toward the silence it came from. Little is idle. The test bites at Taphead, whose long quiet opening is permitted rather than compelled, and lightly in the middle of After the Flood.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Disclosure through sound is credited as fully as through words, and this record discloses almost wholly through sound. What it brings into the open can be stated: a spirit seeking grace after ruin, its voice small inside a vast space, its faith tried and its renewal fragile. The titles name the frame, myrrh for burial, the ascension, the flood and the new grass after it, and the sound undergoes it: the cracked voice against silences that dwarf it, the violence of Ascension Day ended as if by a hand. That is the disclosure of a spiritual condition, not an atmosphere. What holds the figure: the condition is rendered more than articulated, the words are few and indistinct, and some of what listeners find is invited by withholding.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Elevation is the record’s first achievement, and it comes on every piece, in both temperatures. Myrrhman rises out of silence on string clusters and a few piano chords to a grave, suspended height. Ascension Day is the terrible kind: a stumbling, overdriven ensemble gathers to frenzy and is cut off in mid-gesture, the silence after it as overwhelming as the sound. After the Flood builds over nearly ten minutes to a long, distorted, sustained cry, transport by attrition. Taphead’s brass enters out of near-silence like a weight. New Grass is the summit of the warm register, a serenity that does not peak. What holds it a tenth from the top: the highest moments are sustained states more than summits, and the slowness can be heard as a plateau.
Score: 8.9 / 10
Myth is built in the frame and carried by sound and titles rather than by a figure. The pattern under the sequence is the Christian one of death, ascension, deluge and renewal: Myrrhman, the spice given at the birth and at the tomb; Ascension Day; After the Flood; New Grass; and Runeii, a closing word in an older script. That is more than allusion, because the order of the record is the passage it names, and the sound bears it out: the frenzy cut off, the long storm, the calm that follows it. The pattern is load-bearing. What holds the figure from the gate is that no person carries it: the voice is a voice and not a figure, the particular is nearly absent, and the archetype is reached by abstraction.
Score: 8.2 / 10
The inheritance is the band’s own, a synthesiser pop group with hits across Europe in the mid-1980s. The turn is among the largest any popular group has made: away from verse and chorus, from rock instrumentation and from the studio’s ordinary method, toward pieces made of edited improvisation, silence, acoustic and orchestral timbres and a liturgical stillness. Its sources, modal jazz, Debussy and Satie, church music, were proven elsewhere, but never in this form or from inside a pop career. The stake was total and was paid: the band had left EMI after a dispute, the record sold little, and the group made no other. It went further than Spirit of Eden down the road that record opened; that the road was already chosen holds it from the very top.
Score: 9.1 / 10
Change the form and the record stops knowing what it knows, because the knowledge is the form. A record about a voice seeking grace in a space far larger than itself is built of sound placed in silence, of a voice set low and indistinct among the instruments, of pieces whose shape is decided by the edit rather than by verse and chorus. Ascension Day’s cut is the form’s sharpest statement: the frenzy does not resolve, it is ended, and the listener is left in the silence with what was not completed. New Grass’s refusal to build to a climax is its content, patience made audible. Held a step from the top only at Taphead, where the form serves its slowness without wholly enacting it.
Score: 9.0 / 10
Evidence over thirty-five years, and it runs one way. A record neglected on release has been returned to more with each decade, by listeners and above all by musicians, who still take apart its edits, its room sound and its arrangements. The formal yield is deep and keeps arriving: small events in the silences, a breath, a click, a decaying note; the layering of acoustic timbres; a phrase in one piece answering one in another. These surface on repeated hearing and go on surfacing, and the return has grown rather than settled. The semantic yield is narrower, because the words are few and half heard, and some of what is found in the silence is what the listener brings. The depth is demonstrated, and more formal than semantic.
Score: 8.8 / 10
The field is the album of the 1990s. The intrinsic force is high: the record is a full reorganisation of what a rock group’s album could be, improvisation edited into composition, silence used as structure, the band turned into something nearer a chamber ensemble playing in a church. It pressed further than its predecessor and left the song nothing to stand on. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the record and its predecessor are reported to stand at the founding of what was called post-rock in the following years, and later records, Kid A among them, placed the same bet. The reach was delayed, ran through musicians and critics rather than the public, and is shared with Spirit of Eden; delayed influence is credited and discounted.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Survival is weighed over thirty-five years, on form, presence and fabric. The form is whole: the record survives as issued, its order fixed, and nothing of it is lost. The fabric is the strongest of the three. Made of acoustic instruments, organ, brass and strings in a natural room, with almost nothing of the production habits of 1991, the record carries no date on its surface, and it has outlived its occasion, the end of a band and a dispute with a label. Presence is where the charge falls. The record failed commercially on release, its presence for years was narrow, and its standing was built later, among musicians and critics more than the public. A form whole and a fabric unaged, held down by a presence that came late: it stands level with Spirit of Eden, which carries the same charge.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, read to the elder desks’ anchors, and load-bearing throughout. Phill Brown’s engineering captures instruments in a room with unusual truth: the decay of a note, the space around a drum, the grain of a bowed string are the material. Tim Friese-Greene’s shaping of long takes into pieces is a composer’s craft in the medium of tape, and the edits are placed so that the music seems to breathe rather than to have been cut, except where the cut is the point, at the end of Ascension Day. Lee Harris’s drumming on New Grass is restraint made exact. Mark Hollis’s voice is an instrument of fragility, cracked and close. The faults are few: Taphead’s opening is underdetermined, and the indistinct voice sometimes withholds what the record could have given.
Score: 8.8 / 10
One law governs the record: sound emerging from silence and returning to it, a small voice held in a large space, under a light of devotion. The two most distant elements obey it. Ascension Day, a stumbling, overdriven frenzy cut off without warning, and New Grass, a light and steady pulse that never raises its voice, are opposites in force and temperature, and both are governed by the silence that frames them: one is broken off into it, the other moves through it without disturbing it. The range is wider than the quietness suggests: blues harmonica, free-jazz noise, string clusters, a brass chorale, a near-hymn, a guitar figure of pastoral calm. What holds the figure from the top is that the range keeps to one tempo of feeling, slow and grave.
Score: 8.7 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. The sacred is held most fully, as the whole frame and the whole mood: burial, ascension, flood, renewal, a voice seeking grace. Consciousness is held as that single voice in its humility and struggle. The natural order is present in the titles and the sound, a flood and new grass, and in the sense of weather and season the pieces give; mortality is present in Myrrhman. What holds the figure: the family, the couple, labour, the state, history and the city are absent, and the orders that are present are few and lie close together, a spirit before its God and its world in the abstract. Held deeply and narrowly.
Score: 6.5 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.5 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Swerve at 9.1, then The Living Form at 9.0 and The Sublime at 8.9. A turn from a pop career to edited improvisation and silence, taken further than the band’s previous record and paid for in full; a form whose knowledge is the form, a frenzy ended rather than resolved and a calm that never peaks; and elevation on every piece, the record’s quietness the condition of its height.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 6.5: the sacred held as the whole frame and mood, a single consciousness in its humility, the natural order in a flood and new grass, mortality in the burial spice; the family, the couple, labour, the state, history and the city are absent, and the orders present lie close together. Below the rest, The Unconcealment at 8.1 and The Archetypal Deep at 8.2: a spiritual condition rendered more than articulated, and a pattern of death and renewal built in the sequence and borne by no person.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.4 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 9.0, The Made at 8.8, The Inner Law at 8.7, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet: The Swerve at 9.1 clears the bar of 8.5, and Pressure on Tradition and The Imperishable meet it exactly at 8.5, but The Archetypal Deep at 8.2 and The Unconcealment at 8.1 fall short. The Universal Minimum is met: no axis but The Encompassed falls below 8.1, against 7.5, and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 6.5.
Basis · the album as released by Verve, a Polydor label, in September 1991, six tracks in their original order, about forty-three minutes; judged from knowledge of the recording and its reception, with no recording or lyric sheet in hand. Running times are approximate. The band’s earlier records, Mark Hollis’s solo album of 1998 and later reissues are evidence, not the object. The words are few and sung indistinctly; no lyric is quoted, and songs are cited by title. The shaping of the pieces from long improvised takes and the record’s place at the founding of post-rock are stated as reported. Facts that could not be verified, among them the exact release date, the session players by name, the conditions in the studio, the record’s availability in particular years and the critical studies devoted to it, are not given.