It’s Getting Late in The Evening

Relegated to the B-Side of 'Life's What You Make It' - an exploration of one of Talk Talk's most sublime creations.

Such a beautiful piece of music. Originally tucked away as the B-side of ‘Life’s What You Make It’, I bought the Asides and besides compilation almost entirely just to own this sublime work. (OK, so some of the 12” mixes of the tracks are worth having too). The title encapsulates a subdued, introspective Autumnal feeling - evocative of eavesdropping outside of a room where a loose, improvising Jazz trio are finding their way into a fragmented groove, stabbing at Ravel inspired piano notes and shuffling percussion that never really resolves, except by, weirdly, becoming the underpinning for the swell of the song.

A Hammond organ rises “Everybody’s laughing.... Everybody’s laughing.... Everybody’s laughing.... Everybody’s laughing....”

Lyrically Hollis is on form treading familiar - Colour of Spring onwards - latter-Talk Talk philosophical and pseudo-theist territory; “The tide shall turn to shelter us from storm, The seas of charity shall overflow, And bathe us all”.

Larger, defined and stately piano chords affirm the body of the song along with the clean, brittle isolated single chord guitar chord trick - a feature signposting the minimalist direction soon to be redeployed as the framework of Spirit of Eden.

“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)

Rising, swelling, tidal…

The Variophon is used extensively on The Colour of Spring and it seems likely that this is the next timbre introduced. The warm, between brass and woodwind, breath-like air seems clarinet, bassoon or trumpet-like all in one tone. Though Talk Talk moved away from acoustic instrument ‘synthesis’ for Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, often utilising the musicianship of British Jazz stalwart Henry Lowther, the Variophon is the next sound we here in the track. The Variophon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variophon - an electronic instrument invented in 1975 by researchers at the University of Cologne designed to imitate wind instruments - became a favourite instrument for Talk Talk to deploy and its nebular resonance has caused me much head scratching and unfathomable consternation when picking apart the expansive range of timbres used in their recordings.

Rising, swelling, the tidal ….waves..

There is a hiss and crackle. Like worn vinyl or a fleeting scrap of a field recording…..then subsumed by the growing waves of synth pads. In any other hands we would cry fakery and wish for synthetic strings to be replaced with the finest ensemble Abbey Road could assemble. Not in the hands of Hollis and co. It’s tasteful, a perfect meld of timbres when blended with a fluttering warble from the Variophon and the liquid supplicant of the spinning Leslie cabinet of a mid-range, Hammond. Wedding the synthetic and organic, digital and analogue …..

Reason and logic tempered into pure romantic escapism.

Flotsam and jetsam are pulled away from the shore. The swell subsides and fades and we are left with the piano and a tiny drum kit  - is it even a kit? it’s a vague notion of sticks, brushes and hi-hat where the tambourine taps replace a snare beat.

Hollis sings, Haiku and Zen like:

“Walk on by….

…….Make believe our exile's chosen…

Distant feedback and the brittle laceration of Telecaster treble, through an ancient Vox amp, mic’d from across a room.

“Untied….

……I can see our freedom's in your mind”

The reverb is expansive, catching on the glottal stops and sibilant words….

“The tide shall turn to shelter us from storm

The seas of charity shall overflow

And bathe us all”.

The secret Jazz trio, joined by small interjections from single Hammond notes, have locked in and found their place as the 3am underground residency works it’s way to a mapless conclusion that no-one has the desire or clue of when and where to end.

The recording has finished, the tape stopped, but we know the music continues, in a room with no daylight or clocks, where the only limitations are the boundaries of your creative mind.