Ascension Day Talk Talk, Laughing Stock 1991 (2011 reissue Vinyl)

Dreamy and loose, Talk Talk s Laughing Stock turns 180 degrees away from the 80s pop sound of It s My Life and runs headlong into a web of Brian Eno, avantgarde, jazz, and experimental structure. The songs ache with languid phrases and the naked, vulnerable voice of Mark Hollis, the only element of the band that remains perceptible from their versechorusverse past. The bashing, offtime clatter of Ascension Day; the impossibly patient organ motif snaking into a wailing guitar string in After the Flood; the terrifying, beautiful silences that engulf Runeii and Myrrhman; and the teetering, defenseless vocal Hollis lays down on New Grass it all adds up to a stellar, shockingly original work that shreds all pretense of genre limitations, finding a transcendence in the light and shadow of musical color. Matthew Cooke