In the fourth of our seven articles from the URY Music management team, we bring you Luke Cowan’s review of Laughing Stock. This eccentric and experimental release has plenty to offer the listener prepared to enjoy its entirety.
Since the age of 16 my favourite album has been Talk Talk’s 1991 masterpiece and swansong Laughing Stock. The album marked the end of the fascinating career of Talk Talk, a project which, beginning as a mildly interesting pop group, slowly transformed into a vehicle for the most unexpected, conceptually ambitious, and beautiful experimental rock. After Laughing Stock, bandleader Mark Hollis released one remarkable solo album before more or less vanishing from the music scene entirely.
Laughing Stock sits among a class of albums which excite feeling and passion as much as thought. Deceit by This Heat can also be counted among this class, but beyond some shared influences, the two albums are quite distinct. For both, however, there was a vision, a set of objectives — which perhaps only became evident afterwards — and the fulfilment of all of these aspirations came in the execution. Laughing Stock is about organised spontaneity, the power of silence, and the virtues of restraint and honesty. It is rich in musical and intellectual interest, a rare work of art which is truly profound and complete.
The album was recorded in near darkness by Hollis; Tim Friese-Greene (producer); Lee Harris (drummer); and, at the overdubbing stage, an ever-changing band of session musicians, who, with the exception of ensembles, worked one by one to the guidelines created by the trio. Only when each musician had committed to tape a performance that was true to themselves, and correct for the music, would sessions move on. Through editing, songs were given their final appearance after the fact; each segment of ‘Laughing Stock’ was constructed from about five percent of what was recorded for it. What Hollis and Friese-Greene left us with is something that is equally striking for what it is as for what it is not.
At times, Laughing Stock is so delicate it would come apart if you touched it (‘New Grass’); elsewhere it shocks and frightens (the sudden burst of brass and wind in ‘Taphead’ after its gorgeous middle section). At no point, however, is its music arranged beyond necessity. “Before you play two notes, learn how to play one note, y’know. And that, it’s as simple as that really. And don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it,” Hollis said in a 1998 interview. This is the Cageian philosophy behind the record and the essence of why Laughing Stock was recorded. You are unlikely to find an unnecessary note on the whole album. More than that, you are unlikely to find a note or chord that wasn’t exactly the right note or chord for what was needed.
Laughing Stock will not sit comfortably in any category; this is of course part of what makes it so special. The album comes somewhere between spiritual jazz, krautrock, and modern classical music. The result sounds as though Can were playing Morton Feldman compositions, or vice versa. If my analogy is intelligible, it may provide you with some musical context, or may mean nothing to you, but really, any attempt at categorisation is unneeded. The album speaks for itself, and the best grounding for an understanding of it is not deep contemplation right away, but a close listening to its six chapters. You may fall in love with Laughing Stock, and manage to connect with it. If you do, and I hope that you do and spend a long time with it, you may eventually come to see that it has changed the way you think about music.
Article: Luke Cowan
Editor: Alex Sheriff
