/ Naomi /

“His voice was a powerful conduit to other realms. The lyrics for the last three Talk Talk albums are written on the inner sleeve, reproduced in a facsimile of Hollis’s own handwriting, but they sit uncomfortably on the page: terse, disjointed thoughts and phrases. It’s awkward poetry. It is not until you hear the way he sings “take my freedom, for giving me a sacred love” on Wealth – a devastating slow-dissolve into spiritual surrender – that the overwhelming catharsis floods through.

It made sense that by the time of his final work, his 1998 solo album, Hollis’s voice had become simply one of several acoustic instruments, his singing a quiver in the grain, a tonal blip, a north London blues incantation. The words had become almost wholly subservient to the mood, and often impossible to discern – which seemed at least half the point. His creative journey involved a gradual sloughing off of established notions of clarity, meaning, sound. His last album has almost nothing to do with any strand of popular music; it seems to exist in its own world.

When I spoke a few years ago to an executive at EMI, a man who worked with Hollis on compiling the 2013 Talk Talk compilation Natural Order, he recalled that Hollis put almost as much thought into the gaps between the tracks as the songs themselves. “For Mark,” he said, “as much as anything, it was about how it flowed.” You sensed that Hollis had reached a place where the only meaningful statement that remained was stillness. Silence was his final song. For 20 years he sang it beautifully. I’m so sad that it has ended.”

Sally Mann