Enigmatic singer had lasting influence despite retiring into wilful obscurity

Mark Hollis, who has died aged 64 after a short illness, was the lead singer and moving spirit of the 1980s art pop band Talk Talk; they were best remembered by casual listeners for singles such as It’s My Life and Such a Shame,

only minor hits at the time, but the group’s reputation has grown markedly since the release of their now-lauded experimental final albums, after which Hollis more or less walked away from the music business.

Influenced by his elder brother Ed, who was a music producer, manager of the band Eddie and the Hot Rods and the owner of a vast collection of records, Hollis formed his first group, the

Reaction, at the time of punk in

1977. Prompted by Ed, who knew bassist Paul

Webb and drummer Lee Harris from being around Southend, Mark subsequently started Talk Talk and gained a deal with EMI.

Their modish synthesiser-based sound – Simon Brenner played keyboards on the band’s first album before leaving them – saw Talk Talk compared at first to their labelmates Duran Duran. While EMI styled them in New Romantic clothes, and though the groups had a producer in common, Colin Thurston (who had worked on Heroes, David Bowie being the first artist Hollis saw live), it soon became clear that Hollis would take his own path.

After some success with their early singles Today (No 14 in the UK) and Talk Talk

(No 23), and the debut LP The Party’s Over

(1982), Hollis chose Tim Friese-Greene to produce the follow-up. Friese-Greene, who had worked with Thomas Dolby and, improbably, steered Tight Fit to No 1 with The Lion Sleeps Tonight, became Hollis’s co-songwriter.

The single It’s My Life (later covered by No Doubt) reached No 31 in the US in 1984, but failed to make the Top 40 in the UK (as did Such a Shame), though it made No 13 when rereleased in 1990. EMI attributed this to Hollis’ reluctance to appear in promotional videos.

Nonetheless, the band sold well in Europe and enjoyed another hit in Britain when the single Life’s What You Make It reached the Top 20 in 1985. The accompanying album, The Colour of Spring, was to be their best-seller, charting at No 8 and, by focusing on more acoustic instruments such as piano and guitar, rather than synthesisers, hinted at their future direction.

Hollis, whose eclectic influences included Otis Redding, Miles Davis, Burt Bacharach, Debussy and Shostakovich, was an unexpectedly powerful presence on stage, but his refusal to tour proved another cause of friction with EMI. Even so, it agreed to fund the next LP, Spirit of Eden (1988), which was to prove a yet more radical departure from their early music.

It layered jazz, folk and blues, giving full rein to Hollis’ gift for a peculiarly Englishsounding

‘‘For any music to be good, it’s really important that it’s got power, emotion, that it’s felt, basically. The minute it runs outside, then it’s cabaret – that’s the only word for it.’’

melancholia, often delivered in a dreamlike murmur. One track, I Believe in You, was dedicated to Ed Hollis, who had died after failing to overcome addiction to heroin.

There was no obvious single among the six tracks and, frustrated by Hollis’ uncompromising stance, EMI initially refused to accept the album, calling it ‘‘anticommercial’’. Many critics at the time thought it pretentious and it only just reached the Top 20 in the UK.

The next album, Laughing Stock (1991) – essentially by then a collaboration between Hollis and Friese-Greene – was still more minimalistic, though it got to No 26. It was released by Polydor, Hollis and EMI being in litigation over the latter putting out a ‘‘best of’’ compilation, Natural History (which reached No 3).

‘‘For any music to be good,’’ maintained Hollis, ‘‘it’s really important that it’s got power, emotion, that it’s felt, basically. The minute it runs outside, then it’s cabaret – that’s the only word for it.’’

Talk Talk broke up in 1991. Although Hollis released an eponymously titled solo LP in 1998, and featured briefly on others’ albums, he thereafter largely disappeared from the music business, declaring he wanted to concentrate on being with his children.

In the decades since, many musicians have hailed the influence of the group’s final two LPs, seeing them as precursors of a ‘‘postrock’’ movement that allowed bands such as Radiohead to flourish.

The second of three brothers, Mark David Hollis was born in Tottenham, north London, and educated in Muswell Hill and later at Southend Technical School. In some interviews, he claimed to have started a degree in child psychology.

‘‘Before you play two notes,’’ he once observed, ‘‘learn how to play one note. And don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason to play it.’’

His wife and children survive him. – Telegraph Group