In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk By Graeme Thomson
Published by New Modern (2026), out now
In Another World is a great exploration of what makes Talk Talk so unique, and does much to reveal the man behind the genius image of Mark Hollis.
The legend around Talk Talk has become a spun-out tale of the band’s elusive leader, Mark Hollis, shrouded in mystery as the savant who built around himself a web of mystique and a collective of producers and collaborators to create several key albums from the mid-1980s to the beginning of the 1990s that shifted from power-pop to avant-garde, alt-rock pioneers
Thomson’s book is a great introduction for newcomers to the band, younger fans, but also die-hard obsessives–anyone who is keen to get beneath the veil of the Hollis’ recording process. Thomson gets as far as anyone could to try and understand what drove Hollis and the four season construction of the book, representing the last four Talk Talk and Hollis records, The Colour Of Spring, Spirit Of Eden, Laughing Stock, and Mark Hollis. In doing so, it gets you beyond the straight-line rock bio towards a more open-ended but engaging approach. That suits the sometimes challenging extremes of Hollis’s mission of consistent experimentation, the timeless quality of which Thomson evokes well and highlights why Talk Talk enjoy such an enduring legacy, now more than ever.
While Thomson does not interview Mark Hollis himself, who died in 2019, he completes the picture of Talk Talk’s journey with a wealth of new interviews, speaking to almost everyone from friends, record execs and producers to build a cohesive overview of Talk Talk’s creative world.
After turning his hand to the slickest and most plastic of classic Eighties pop songs, particularly “It’s My Life”, Hollis became more stringent–an auteur and ruthless self-editor. Thomson is keen to rescue Hollis’s reputation as something of a studio tyrant. Admiring John Coltrane, he refers to the force restraint of the composer Shostakovich: “That total oppressiveness in the force of it and then, in other moments, that pure sort of tranquillity. It’s between those two extremes”. Through Thomson, Hollis is presented as an everyman genius; sometimes aloof, but not wholly uncaring; just hyper-focused in following his own vision, but with some studio casualties along the way without which he would not have made the kind of albums he wanted, needed, even to make.
A fan of Miles Davis, Thomson notes that Hollis latched on to some of his most keenly melodic albums, Sketches Of Spain and his interpretation of the Porgy And Bess soundtrack. Where Hollis edges into free jazz territory, it is always without the bounce and verve of the hard ‘bop’ records, dare I say, more in the vein of In A Silent Way. Like Bowie’s “Heroes” sessions and Nine Inch Nails The Downward Spiral album, Hollis would keep the mics rolling on a rotating cast of ban regulars and session players, capturing every bum note, squawk and blast of feedback, sometimes including more mistakes for their sonic verbosity than the actual ‘playing’ of a musician–leading to fascinating anomalies outside the normal realm of the ruthlessly crafted pop song.
Read this book for a deeper understanding of Talk Talk’s albums and the cast of musicians that made them happen; the story of Hollis’ artistic growth and desperation for freedom is, for once, wholly inspiring and without the cautionary tales that befall so many rock stars who lose sight of the music, which Hollis never did.
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Graeme Thomson will be co-hosting a playback of Spirit Of Eden at Walthamstow Tradehall Rock And Roll on 22 September.
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/
Words by Adam Steiner
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