Phil - I couldn't agree more. Both albums are among my top twenty or so. To expand on differences for the benefit of others: While Mark Hollis unique fusion makes a nod to jazz and pop, with other entirely unique elements thrown in, Creosote and Hopkins are coming from more folk and traditional influences. Hollis is more sparse and spare with lyrics. Diamond Mine, while simple and poetic, is more literal and tells the sad stories of the lives of the ordinary lives of the working class in a small seaside town. Both are deeply personal and melancholic in nature.
You might be able to get the sense of where I'm coming from in the comparing the two as similar in the lyrics of two very simple songs..maybe not. I find both hauntingly beautiful:
Mark Hollis, Inside Looking Out
Feel my skin Lord
Feel my luck tumbling down
Left no life no more
Turn my seasons turn
Lived in much younger times
Left no life no more
For me to shine
King Creosote and John Hopkins, Your Young Voice
It's your young voice that's keeping me holding on to my dull life, to my dull life.
(repeated several times)
