Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden

One of the most extraordinary acts of creative defiance in the history of recorded music. When Talk Talk delivered Spirit Of Eden to their label EMI in early 1988, the reaction was shock and horror. Band leader Mark Hollis had always resisted being associated with the synth-pop and New Romantic movements that had defined the band's early commercial success, and this album made that resistance absolute. EMI heard no singles, no hits, and no compromises. Within three months of release the album had been deleted from the catalog and the band had been dropped. What EMI failed to understand was that they had just received a masterpiece.

Recorded at Wessex Studios in London between 1987 and 1988, often in near-total darkness, Spirit Of Eden was built from hundreds of hours of improvised performances from a remarkable ensemble of musicians, all heavily edited and sculpted by Hollis and producer Tim Friese-Greene into six tracks of breathtaking depth and fragile beauty. Drawing equally from jazz, classical music, ambient, blues, and dub, the album defied every category available to it and invented several new ones in the process. It is now widely regarded as the founding document of post-rock, a direct influence on Sigur Ros, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and generations of musicians who followed.

The passage of time has been extraordinarily kind to Spirit Of Eden. NME ranked it among the 500 greatest albums of all time, and its stature among musicians and critics alike has only grown with each passing decade. Tracks like "The Rainbow," "I Believe in You," and "Eden" remain among the most quietly stunning pieces of music committed to tape in the 1980s.

This half-speed master pressing ensures every detail of one of music's most intricately constructed and emotionally profound recordings is heard exactly as it deserves to be.