Mark Hollis

Mark Hollis Artist: Mark Hollis
Label: Blueprint UK
Category: Music


Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Format: Import
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1


UPC: 604388459629
EAN: 0604388459629
ASIN: B00002MCU2


Release Date: 2000-04-18

Mark Hollis


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Tracks:

  1. The Colour Of Spring
  2. Watershed
  3. Inside Looking Out
  4. The Gift
  5. A Life (1895-1915)
  6. Westward Bound
  7. The Daily Planet
  8. A New Jerusalem

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Shhh..........2004-06-28

Mark Hollis seems to be one of the very few contemporary musicians left in the world who has managed to remember that the most powerful note is often the one you don't play. I only wish there were more work coming from this gifted artist in our age of over-production for the lowest common denominator.

5 out of 5 stars The Beauty of Imperfection.......2003-12-13

Those who enjoyed Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock should find much to love in this solo outing. Do not expect virtuosity. Coming into Mark Hollis with such an attitude will cause you to miss the point of this album. This is about emotion, and the very frailties that make us human. If you seek machine-like precision and processed-to-death sounds, look elsewhere. Mark Hollis is a much more *intimate* album than that. Imagine sitting in a circle of musicians, tucked safely away in a back room somewhere, playing without an audience, without pressure. On occasion, a chair squeaks or someone misses a note, or someone joins in just ahead or behind where they "should"...but that's *not* what matters. Instead, it is the private communion with each other, and with the music created between them, that matters. Unconstrained, slowly flowing along from one song to the next, it's rather like a beautiful, spontaneous practice session committed to tape. In today's world of grandeur and overprocessed everything, this is a value we've forgotten. Perhaps that's why Mark Hollis so stirs the heart.

Mr. Hollis' voice and lyrics are as vulnerable as ever, and these soft, melancholy wanderings offer an intriguing contrast to the open, sometimes even refreshing, uplifting arrangements. While never building into the crescendoes of Spirit of Eden's "Inheritance" or Laughing Stock's "Ascension Day", there is certainly enough of interest to keep the ear engaged. Soft and subtle are the key words here. Listen for the murmurring choir in "A life (1895-1915)" for such beauty...I could live in that gorgeous section forever.

While, to be honest, I do not listen to most of the lyrics (they are rather depressing, but furthermore, Mr. Hollis has always focused on tone and expressiveness more than on clear enunciation anyway), I was very impressed by the lyrics of "A new Jerusalem", which seem to capture quite accurately the desolation left in the aftermath of war. This is the return of the shell-shocked soldier to a home that has been ravaged in his absence. I showed this song to a friend who has been personally affected by war, and he was quite moved. We both focused immediately, on our first listenings, on these lines:

"Heaven burn me
Should I swear to fight once more."

This song is lyrically on the level of "New Grass" or "I Believe in You", and that alone is worth the price of the entire album, as well as the stunning music of "A life (1895-1915)". Of course, there is not a bad track to be found on this album. If you cannot tolerate minimalism, imperfection, or improvisation, I recommend looking elsewhere--but if you can keep an open mind, Mark Hollis is well worth obtaining. And, as with the solo works of Pink Floyd's keyboardist Rick Wright, this is an underappreciated work where too few copies were made--so be sure to get it before supplies run out.

5 out of 5 stars Haunting Beautiful.......2002-01-07

A record like this comes once in a lifetime, I think. One cannot call it rock. It isn't. If you are expecting/looking for rock, look further. If you want to hear something different, something quiet and gently like a spring shower, melodically poetic, something to turn out the lights and really LISTEN to, then this is what you are looking for. Combining elements of jazz and the avant garde, this album creates an incomparable landscape a sounds and silence. I have never heard anything else so serene and beautiful.

4 out of 5 stars a fascinating impressionist work..........2001-12-10

Mark Hollis presents a collection of beautiful fractured pieces. I hesitate to call them songs. They are almost impressions of songs. They enter your unconscious only to resurface later.

2 out of 5 stars

Music Album:

  1. It Goes Without Saying ~ Dum Dums
  2. Shady Satin Drug
  3. Disease ~ matchbox twenty
  4. Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty ~ Felt
  5. This Is Life ~ More to Pride
  6. Viva ~ La Dusseldorf
  7. Strings for Satellites ~ Fiver
  8. Auto Focus ~ Stylex
  9. You Cannot Kill What Does Not Live ~ King Loser
  10. Half Smiles of the Decomposed ~ Guided by Voices

Music Album

Music Album

Music CD

San Francisco ~ Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land

The Blues ~ Plas Johnson

Juju

Un Faux Pas! ~ Marcus Shelby

Unriel ~ Alex Riel

El Caballero Cantor 1935-1945 ~ Ignacio Corsini

Sones de Bienvenido ~ Julian Gutierrez

Naniwa Ninjou ~ Chikage Ishii

Y los Cantaores ~ Various Artists

15 Anos De Lambada - Colecao Arquivo ~ Various Artists