“Ascension Day” by Talk Talk

"Ascension Day" comes from Laughing Stock, Talk Talk's fifth studio album, released on 16 September 1991 and the last record the band would make. Mark Hollis wrote it with Tim Friese-Greene, who also produced.

By then bassist Paul Webb had gone, leaving a duo of Hollis, singer and multi-instrumentalist, and drummer Lee Harris. After a bitter exit from EMI they landed at Polydor, which released the album on its freshly revived jazz imprint, Verve. Recording at Wessex Sound Studios in London stretched between September 1990 and April 1991, with Phill Brown engineering: a big ensemble improvising while Hollis, a perfectionist to the bone, chased exactly the right atmosphere in the room. The band split once it was out, bowing out on a record often cited as a watershed for the young post-rock sound.

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