In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk – Graeme Thomson – Book Review
by Killian Laher

The final albums by Talk Talk are often discussed in hushed, reverential terms.  Your opinion on this will influence your opinion on this book.  Talk Talk are a band where the casual music fan is mainly aware of their mid-eighties work.  Author Graeme Thomson covers the entirety of Talk Talk’s output, plus Mark Hollis’ solo album.  However, it focuses on the final three Talk Talk albums, plus the solo album, and each one is given a part in this book.

Although none of the band members participated in the book, it’s well-written and researched in serious depth.  Thomson doesn’t shy away from how difficult/uncompromising mainman Mark Hollis could be, while the role of Tim Friese-Greene is explored and found to be very important.

The writer conveys the tension and lack of ‘fun’, for want of a better word, in the recording sessions for each album.  There are discussions on the significance of the album artwork created by James Marsh, but it’s chiefly concerned with the music.  In fact, the song New Grass gets its own chapter.

There’s no attempt to speculate on what Hollis was doing in the last 20 years or so of his life.  For fans of the albums, the book goes into exhaustive detail on each one, and fans of these albums will absolutely lap this up.