Graeme Thomson

@graemethomson.bsky.social

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In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk out now, published by New Modern. Also: Under The Ivy; Small Hours; Themes For Great Cities &tc. Web: www.graemethomson.net

Together Alone by Crowded House
Ginger and white cat curled asleep on a grey chair
A ginger and white cat watches a golfer on TV clad in the same colouring
The song that makes me cry Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, because it reminds me of my mum and growing up in Bristol. He sings about his mum dressing him and showing him pictures, and my mum was exactly like that. In every childhood photo I’m in a shirt and tie and looking proper.
An image of Jacques Tati as Monsieur Hulot in Mr Hulot's Holiday
The inner sleeve of Armed Forces showing Elvis Costello in a dark suit dangling over a swimming pool. The original title for the album was Emotional Fascism
The Spring title page from the book In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk
A fat roll of Argentinian pesos
A black cat and a ginger and white sit in a rectangle of sunlight staring at me in a deeply ominous fashion.
The 12 Best music books so far in the Herald, a page and a half feature illustrated with a photo of George Michael
A ginger cat with white markings sleeping on a white cover with his paws raised.
Typewronger books interior
Edinburgh links, a church spire,sun, shade
In Another World Graeme Thomson, New Modern, £25 The Edinburgh author has written fine books about Kate Bush, John Martyn and Simple Minds in the past, but he has set himself quite the challenge here. Subtitled “The Four Seasons of Talk Talk”, he has written a book about a cult band whose members won’t talk and whose front man and key songwriter Mark Hollis died in 2019. So, instead, this is a book that focuses on the records themselves. If that sounds dry the result is anything but. In fact, the book has a swirling, tidal pull to it that sweeps you along and under. An example of the rewards of close listening.
Seen from above, A ginger cat stretches on a wooden floor. Sunlight forms a square on the floor, criss crossed with shadows from the window frame
A pile of hardback copies of Small Hours: The Long Night of John Martyn
Raleigh Grifter bike
A copy of In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk photographed at the Karl Marx Strasse U-Bahn station in Berlin. The caption puns on Mark (Hollis) and Karl Marx, as well as ‘Snow In Berlin’, the working title for the great Talk Talk song ‘I Believe In You’.
A cat is curled asleep. In the background the Norway v Brazil game is on the TV, with Lee Dixon co-commentatinzzzzzz
A copy of the Talk Talk biography In Another World with a pile of bookplates on top; the top one is signed.
A ginger and white cat stretches along the sill beneath a glazed bathroom window. Flowers on one side, other bathroom artefacts on the other. Framed by white shutters and white tiles.
Lee Perry backstage in Edinburgh holding (the wrong way up) a copy of One World by John Martyn
A screenshot of a passage from page 1 from In Another World
A short video of Chameleon Day by Talk Talk playing on a record player, with 2 notable scratches audible
Two hardback copies of In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk, one lying flat, the other upright on top of it.
4 books seen spine on, including 2 copies of Under The Ivy, a biography of Kate Bush, as well as books on Britney Spears and Stravinsky
A ginger and white cat lounges in the heat
The cover of Gentlemen by Afghan Whigs. A 50s type barfly looks shaken and desperate as he accepts a shot from a barman.
A ginger and white cat sits on stone flagging with its head tilted up to the sun. There are small purple flowers on either side and a stone wall behind..
As many current conversations across the arts are about threats posed by (and, for some, the possibilities of) AI, this story of a man and a band who wanted to make everything real is a timely and heart-warming one. A vision which would not be cowed or compromised. It’s a fascinating story, brilliantly told. Few music biographies are real page turners in the manner this one is, in no small part due to the human stories at its heart, both in terms of subject and writer. But ultimately, this is a book which will not only take you back to the music, as the best music biographies do, it will make you listen in a new way. In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk is not an instruction manual, it’s a guide book, and it opens up a magical, and often moving, journey.
A picture of books on Prefab Sprout and Talk Talk advertising an event at Louder Than Words book fest.
A ginger cat with white markings luxuriates in a rectangle of sunlight falling on a light carpet
No Guru No Method No Teacher by Van Morrison
A promo CD of the Prefab Sprout album Crimson/Red, with the plain white cover signed by Paddy McAloon
Truly Gifted Kids, a book about Prefab Sprout by Nige Tassell
A copy of Laughing Stock by Talk Talk with the book In Another World
A copy of Friendloverplane by the Blue Aeroplanes
Copies of books about Talk Talk, Simple Minds (x2), Kate Bush and John Martyn on a patterned chair.
Title page of the Irish Times summer reading recommendations
A photo of a book called In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk and an Instagram caption reviewing Mark Hollis and Talk Talk’s music and the book.
The chapter heading: Heaven Waits, a short meditation on New Grass - from In Another World
Graeme Thomson and Nicola Meighan in Topping for the In Another World event.
A copy of In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk with signed bookplates
A black cat sits on a wooden floor in a patch of sunlight
The head of a black cat in front of a window looking out to a street and a blue sky with clouds
A flyer for In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk with Graeme Thomson and Nicola Meighan at Topping & Co Booksellers in Edinburgh on Monday, June 1st, at 7pm.
Spotify playlist for In Another World
A screenshot of a Spotify playlist and the cover of In Another World
A black cat on a grey chair, with a ginger cat behind.
2 bottles of Buckfast, a can of McEwans Export and a pot noodle on a sunny tenement stair. All empty.
A black cat slips away down a path fringed with bushes and glowers
An Irish Times obit of Beverley Martyn which misspelled her last name as Martin
In which case, at the time of writing I have owned my copy of The Colour of Spring for around thirty-five years. For most of that period, the record has played cleanly, with one exception. Buried in the distended piano notes, hisses, creaks and Variophonic squalls of ‘Chameleon Day’, directly after the line ‘breathe on me’, my copy is afflicted with an aural tear, a Velcro riiiiiip, so loud and distinctive it is impossible to miss. With perfect syncopation, the sound recurs a few moments later, in the immediate wake of the same melodic refrain, this time after the vocalist, Mark Hollis, sings the words ‘killing time’ – although ‘singing’ doesn’t seem quite strong enough a verb to describe what Hollis is doing here. It felt to me then, and sometimes still, that on these lines he was hymning the English gospel so clean, hard and true that his voice simply gouged its way into the vinyl, several layers deeper than the
Chameleon Day by Talk Talk playing on a record player, with 2 notable scratches.
In Another World with vinyl copies of Laughing Stock and Spirit of Eden
A mocked up Panini sticker featuring my picture and name for the 4 Idle Hands podcast
In Another World resting on a vinyl copy of Laughing Stock by Talk Talk
Pack of Panini stickers
Orange juice, water, teapot, art deco light, glass, Glasgow
In Another World: The Four Seasons of Talk Talk