First edition hardback in slipcased, signed by Ben Wardle and Talk Talk album illustrator James marsh to title page.

He resented public performances but by the time he gave up touring in 1986 Talk Talk had become a formidable and compelling live act. Indeed, Phill Brown likened Hollis’s unforgiving standards to attempting to “bottle the spirit of improvised magic”. Tracing Mark Hollis's life from earliest beginnings through his formative years, author Ben Wardle offers genuine insight into the creative forces which helped shape the sound and songs recorded by Talk Talk. Despite being released as a solo album by Hollis, it was originally intended to be credited to Talk Talk, under the name ‘Mountains of the Moon’. Today, beyond the records, beyond the music, the rest is silence – or at least that is how Mark Hollis would have wished it, and his wife and sons seem determined to honour his legacy by saying nothing and keeping the door to the walled garden firmly locked.They help him fill in some of the gaps in the story: where Hollis was living at certain times; how the albums were recorded and in what circumstances (rumours about opium-laced sessions during the recording of Spirit of Eden are shown to be nonsense); and what it was like to be around Hollis – sometimes fun and sometimes maddening. Add to this a growing cult following and dedicated fan sites, and a grand mythification will inevitably build. The Green Transition Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. He achieved commercial success in the 1980s as the lead singer of Talk Talk, a synth pop/post-rock band.

In a mere eight years and five albums, Talk Talk undertook a transformation unprecedented in popular music history. We learn Mark was into golf and motorcycles, but never strayed from that fiercely independent streak. NME were particularly venomous, once describing him at an early gig as looking like a “nervous accountant who had stumbled onstage”. Wardle gives an honest account of the musician’s all-out determination to innovate, which he often did to the exasperation of collaborators, bandmates, producers and managers.Wardle has interviewed Keith Aspden, Talk Talk’s former manager; Mark Feltham, the harmonica player and one of Hollis’ most trusted session musicians; and Phill Brown, the audio engineer who worked on the great albums.