ONE MAN TELL'S ANOTHER

This album has remained one of the favorites in my collection. It's an introverted album for the most part, moody and intimate and stripped down and raw. Later Talk Talk albums such as Laughing Stock seem to me to be a better touchpoint to this album than King Crimson or Anekdoten; if you like Mark Hollis's minimalist and contemplative approach, I think you'll appreciate where Landberk was heading with this album. There are four gems on this album that only get better with age.

The album starts out with a solid, energetic track, Time. Here Landberk sets the tone for the album by setting the verses to a wash of fuzz guitar and understated mellotron and organ accompaniment. The parts balance beautifully, and the simplicity of the arrangement belies some interesting harmonic turns and uses of distortion. One of my favorite moments on the album is the anticlimax: a falsetto lyric floats hauntingly over the wash: this fight I will lose, and I know it / hold my head up high, I won't show it.

This is followed by the crunchy Kontiki. Here, too, the heavy crunch of the intro gives way to a quiet balladic interior, given sparkle by interesting guitar effects. The guitar solo is a fine example of how much can be squeezed out of one simple phrase.

You Are is a long slow burn of a song, and is kept alive and simmering with little more than a four-to-the-floor + ride cymbal drum pattern, growling organ, and a suspended D in the guitar part.

Valentinsong is one of my favorite songs of all time, and rewards a close listen with headphones in a dark room. The first part is intensely withdrawn, hypersensitive, and brooding--in sum, naked, as the lyrics put it. The vocals, scarcely more than a whisper at the start, crack and falter over the sparse accompaniment, which in turn is full of suspensions and half-uttered musical phrases. The second part complements this with a lush and romantic ballad, which is crowned at the end by a stunningly gorgeous guitar melody, again squeezing the utmost out of each phrase, along with a subtle use of distortion and harmonics that's completely devastating.

Tell is a triumphant conclusion to the album, and opens up to a satisfying heavy rock groove, stopping and launching back into its groove with relish. Still present, though, are the careful and subtle use of harmonics, distortion, and effects--all the little bits that I believe characterize the finest achievements of this album.

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