A band does not leap alone. Look behind each of these turning points and there is a second person with a hand on the desk. Talk Talk began as a synth-pop band produced by Colin Thurston. In 1984 Mark Hollis chose Tim Friese-Greene, who had made records for Tight Fit, Blue Zoo and Thomas Dolby without stamping a sound on any of them. He became Hollis's co-writer and, in Graeme Thomson's phrase, the de facto fourth member. With the engineer Phill Brown they swapped synthesizers for piano, Hammond and a choir, then spent months in a blacked-out Wessex Studios improvising, and erased most of what they recorded. Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock were the result. The same pattern runs through the rest. Nigel Godrich pushed Radiohead through Kid A by splitting the band in two, one half building a sound without guitars or drums. Tony Visconti and Brian Eno worked with Bowie on Low; Eno then produced Talking Heads' Remain in Light, built from looped grooves. Teo Macero took the tape from Miles Davis's sessions and spliced it into In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. Kate Bush is the exception that proves it: from The Dreaming on, she produced herself. Start with Talk Talk, then follow the break.