LAST year Talk Talk devotees could restock their faded collection with refurbished editions of their first four studio albums. Now newcomers can dip into long-silent Mark Hollis’s venerated catalogue.

Cult band leader Hollis has overseen the tracklisting, running order, mastering and artwork for two compilations, the first, Natural History, focusing on the best-known tracks accompanied by a DVD, as the North Londoners took increasingly quiet leaps from electronic pop to ambient, doomed beauty. The companion piece, Natural Order, is the first Talk Talk museum exhibit to accommodate the Verve/Polydor era Laughing Stock album, outtake version of After The Flood et al.

This alternative history is no less essential, the likes of April 5th and Eden making you wish Hollis would return after only one solo album in 22 years. Come on Mark, if My Bloody Valentine’s equally perfectionist Kevin Shields can bring himself to issue new material (the MBV download album), so can you.