Track Listing

1. Myrrhman
2. Ascension Day
3. After The Flood
4. Taphead
5. New Grass
6. Runeii

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5061 in Music
• Released on: 2006-02-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
The fifth Talk Talk album, LAUGHING STOCK was its first following the band's much publicised split with EMI Records (the album was issued by the jazz label Verve). Recorded with ahuge complement of string instruments, LAUGHING STOCK is a far cry from the pop music of the band's early days--indeed,there are very few records that sound like it at all.
Containing elements of rock, classical, jazz, and experimentalmusic, it pays little or no attention to traditional musical structures, setting its sights instead on unexplored realms. On "After the Flood", a slithering bass line and low-key drum pattern are coloured in with peals of shrieking guitar feedback, while the whole track is suffused with sampled rain effects. "Taphead" opens with an underplayed guitar line against Mark Hollis' hesitant vocals, before devolving into apiece that's part song and part sound sculpture, punctuatedby strings and horns that suggest metal fatigue in a cavernous ship's hold. The ebb and flow of "New Grass" features instruments bubbling and echoing around Hollis' shimmering voice, set to a jazzy backbeat. This is an album that will slowly enfold you.

Customer Reviews

Very simply, among the absolute best
Just to add my tu'penny to what the others have said here. Talk Talk are one of the very finest bands ever to have recorded: even their earlier electro-synth-pop stuff is often much more inventive and interesting and lovely than its peers; but from The Colour of Spring onwards they really did move into another gear. Spirit of Eden is the rootsier, bluesier of the two final, great albums; Laughing Stock is, if anything, prettier and more accessible, though it is less conventional (!) and more eclectic. It has a folky, Celtic-y tinge to it, though for God's sake don't let that put you off - since that's not my cup of tea either ('course, if it is, you'll be in clover) - but there is just enough to evoke, wonderfully, night and water and trees, and all the -best- aspects of that sort of thing. But, like all good albums, it sounds a mess at first: and it is that mess that you will discover is actually a complexity, a complexity that means you will take forever to discover its every little perfection; every sudden surprising melodic flourish; every obscure symmetry. Your intellect will appreciate its sheer boldness and effrontery, your heart will fall in love with its beauty, and your soul will travel with it into a stunningly delineated soundscape of sadness and joy; of despair and of hope.

Their finest hour
Laughing Stock is without doubt, Talk Talk's seminal piece; their finest hour. I know of no other piece of music so rich in texture. It's landscape.

Think of your favorite view, no matter how many times you look at it, you will always see new things. It changes, the seasons come and go.

It might appear disjointed and hard work at first. When I first bought it many years ago, I was truly dissapointed. But that's because I'd never heard anything like it; my brain couldn't file it in a comfertable box. But I stuck with it and it wasn't long before I realised this was something speacial.

From the futillity of the human condition to the joy of life - it'll take you there (and bring you back again)It's all there - check it out

live it and breathe it . . .
I first heard Laughing Stock as an echo upstairs on my brother's stereo. Like discoveries of Van Morrison, Nick Drake and Nina Simone before it, I was slow to catch on. Maybe a year or so passed as I dismissed it as rubbish eighties tat, I continued to hear it from upstairs and on car journeys. Then one summer while at university, I started to record my brother's entire collection on to mini-disc to take down to Bristol with me, maybe 100 or so albums. Through this I discovered the joys of miles davis albums such as bitches brew and in a silent way, van morrison's astral weeks among others.

A year or so later I put Laughing Stock on in my room and it started to grow. Three or four evenings later I was hooked by the layered textures and haunting melodies. I spoke to my brother on the phone, "I discovered a really good album . . Laughing Stock" . . needless to say, he chastised me for my arrogance and forgetfullness.

I will never make the same mistake again, for I missed out on hours of the most vividly beautiful musical experience of my life. This album is right up there for me in my top three or four records of all time, including Van the man, and Miles. Like them, it captures something unique, something true to the bone, something that transcends music and enters the realm of the essence of life itself. The experience of this record is one that it is difficult to put into words, except to say that it does get better with every listen.

People often say that you should stick with some or other album, listen a couple of times as it will grow. Laughing Stock should be stuck to for some more time, if you don't like it after five listens, I guarantee after fifteen, twenty and fifty it will become as intricate to your music collection as anything you have ever owned. This album is life-affirming, death-defying, depressing, uplifting and above all, vividly beautiful. It deserves to be in your music collection, don't wait, idiotically, like I did, get it now and live and breathe it.