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Album Details

• Artist: Talk Talk
• Album: Laughing Stock
• Label: Polydor
• Year of Release: 1991
• ME Rating: Indie Classic
• Reviewed by: dscanland on 2005-03-31

I was a "Laughing Stock" with one of the other reviewers here at MusicEmissions when I poked fun at his admiration for Talk Talk. I was very naive thinking that they were a one hit wonder with "It's My Life". Well, I looked into the band and Laughing Stock pretty much always got straight A's no matter who the reviewer was. I was curious enough to check it out. While the hit that I was familiar with was released in 1986, Laughing Stock came out in 1991, a full 5 years after their single hit. After a little investigation, I also found out that Laughing Stock was basically a Mark Hollis solo album recorded with many guest musicians. This isn't an album that you can take lightly and in fact, the first true listen for me was on an evening flight to San Francisco. It was a fitting soundtrack for the darkened plane as I drifted in and out of consciousness. There is very little form to the songs on this album giving us a jazzy feel to the album. The first song, "Myrrhman", literally floats around with hardly a structure whatsoever. It isn't really until the second track, "Ascension Day", where you start to hear a drum beat. Hollis chooses a very Eno-esque feel for a lot of the songs. And the dark overtone that keeps the songs so intense ends up surfacing on almost all of the songs. "New Grass" starts out with the sunniest disposition and manages to keep it throughout the 9+ minutes.
Laughing Stock is an album that really maintains cohesion throughout and an obvious reference point for such popular experimental bands like Radiohead. It is a dark album with many references to sin but really a truly brilliant album that is a good fit in any rock (and jazz for that matter) collection.

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