Talk Talk spent ten months crafting their 1988 masterpiece. They were allowed complete creative freedom by EMI and the record company was stunned by the end result. No hits, no "Life's What You Make It" part II, no chart material of any kind - precisely what talk Talk wanted.
Nothing had been planeed in advance, the album was organically grown from lengthy jams and improvised music. Via the medium of the new digital recording desk at Wessex Studios Mark Hollis and Tim Friese-Greene were able to move hundreds of sections of music around, some only seconds long, in order to create the finished work.
Elements of Hollis's favourite album, Miles Davis' seminal Sketches Of Spain, were combined with the rhythmic pulse of German iconoclasts Can and shimmering air of delicate ambience, undercut with occasional menace hangs over the whole album.
What was side one on the vinyl is one long suite, in three distinct sections. "The Rainbow" is an astonishing achievement, beginning imperceptibly, with a mournful trumpet and some gentle strings. This ain't rock n' roll... Without warning a harmonica blasts across the music, powerful and angry and the bass and drums create a simple rhythm beneath, as Mark Hollis sings the first line: 'Oh yeah, the world's turned upside down'. Never have the opening words on an album been so true. This is nothing like any music that anyone has ever created before.
The rest of the suite is no less impressive with "Eden" containing faint echoes of the Velvet Underground's "Heroin" - something which takes on a deeper resonance in the light of the fifth track "I Believe In You" which is nothing less than a heartfelt prayer in memory of Mark Hollis's brother Ed who had died of drug related problems. It's a beautiful yet heartbreaking song, a stunning evocation of the utter waste of life, and the devastatingly crippling consequences that can be caused by addiction to heroin. It is made all the more religious in feel by the addition of the angelic voices of the Chelmsford Cathedral choir. The depth of passion in Mark Hollis's voice when he sings 'I just can't bring myself to see it starting' rings so true of someone despairing, someone who can't bear to watch a loved one sink into addiction. And the incomprehension in the line 'Is it worth so much when you taste it?' fully conveys the bewilderment and feelings of utter helplessness when faced with the desperate actions of an addict.
The final track "Wealth" is even more reverent as Hollis appears to be offering his soul to a higher power. As the closing song on a relatively well-known 'rock' band's record it is an astonishingly brave, direct and emotional thing to do. That it succeeds without sounding trite or embarrassing is due in no small part to the genuine sincerity and vulnerability shown by Hollis. There's a sense that the whole album has been in some way a journey, an attempt to find a higher spirit, a guiding force, or, if you prefer, God. The extremely long fade is a masterful stroke and almost makes the listener wonder if the song was ever there at all.
Spirit Of Eden takes the listener on an amazingly emotional journey. It is quite possibly the greatest album I have ever heard.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
This certainly is class, needs a bit of pantience and you discover it's the perfect soundtrack for meloncholy moments - having said that The Colour Of Spring is a fine album too.
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