Tindersticks "Soft Tissue" (2024)

Soft Tissue

release date: Sep. 13, 2024

format: vinyl (Lucky Dog41LP) / digital (9 x File, FLAC)

[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,96]

producer: Stuart A. Staples

label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: A) 1. "New World" - 3. "Nancy" - 4. "Falling, the Light" (4 / 5) - - B) 1. "Always a Stranger" (4 / 5) - "The Secret of Breathing" - 3. "Turned My Back" (4 / 5) - 4. "Soon to Be April"

14th studio album by Tindersticks following 3½ years after Distractions (Feb. 2021) is as usual produced by songwriter and front-figure Stuart Staples, who is credited all songs, two tracks (#A4 and #B4) are co-composed with bassist and keyboardist Dan McKinna.

From scratch on, it's evident that Soft Tissue goes in quite a different direction than the electronic bits suggested on the predecessor - except for the drum-programming heard on track #2 "Don't Walk, Run". These eight / nine songs - the vinyl issue comes with eight tracks, the digital with a ninth bonus track "New World (Edit)" - are kept at more normal running lengths varrying from 3:35 to 6:15 mins, but what's most striking is a strong dominance of strings - making it a characteristic chamber pop album. And then, when strings are not dominating the song arrangement, keyboards either hold focus with a sound of an accordion or a Wurlitzer piano or an organ are often taking the leading stance. Perhaps with the exception of track #B3, which is a soul-like chorus-based warm side-step, but overall the songs are arranged in quiet, simple, and mellow tones. Ordinary drums are hardly heard throughout the album - instead, there's either subtle jazz-like percussion, glockenspiel, bells, or bongos as musical accompanies.

Once again, it's an album where Staples' narating and haunted vocal dominate the picture, but it's done with delicacy and that neccesary variation that makes it all so much more appetising.

As with the 2021 album, cover art is credited Staples' daughter Sidonie Osborne Staples.

Tindersticks once again deliver a solid and strong collection of songs to its long list of modern staples.

Recommended.

[ 👍allmusic.com, Rolling Stone, 👍The Guardian 4 / 5, Gaffa.dk 4 / 6 stars ]

Tindersticks "Distractions" (2021)

Distractions
release date: Feb. 19, 2021
format: vinyl (LTD. blue vinyl) / digital (7 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,02]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Man Alone (Can't Stop the Fadin')" - 2. "I Imagine You" - 3. "A Man Needs a Maid" - 4. "Lady With the Braid" - 5. "You'll Have to Scream Louder" - 6. "Tue-Moi" - 7. "The Bough Bends"

13th studio album by Tindersticks succeeding No Treasure but Hope (Nov. 2019) released on Stuart Staples' label Lucky Dog aided by independent German label City Slang. The band is still the quintet consisting of lead vocalist, primary songwriter and composer Stuart A. Staples, guitarist Neil Fraser, bassist and keyboardist Dan McKinna, keyboardist David Boulter, and drummer Earl Harvin. The album 'only' contains seven compositions with a total running length at just above 46 minutes, which means several tracks have a longer running time than the common 3 to 4 minutes, although on recent releases the band really has done things its own way. Somewhat unconventionally, the album starts off with the longest track by far, running more than 11 minutes, and the track is also unusual for Tindersticks as it has a clear electronic edge. After that the album continues in a more traditional way for the band with quite simple-structered chamber pop without much other than Staples' vocal on top of quiet guitar notes, an almost non-existent ambient keyboard and faintly audible strings - with no traditional rhythm instruments whatsoever. Another new move is the presence of cover songs. Of the album's seven tracks, three here are covers and even though the original versions are extremely diverse, Tindersticks have turned the songs into Tindersticks songs, which fit quite nicely together. "A Man Needs a Maid" is a well-known Neil Young song from his classy Harvest album from 1972, and it's here completely adapted to a Tindersticks universe with bright backing vocals and Staples' contrasting darker vocal - the result is very good. The following track, "Lady With the Braid", is probably a lesser-known song to most people written by [Dorothy] Dory Previn [aka Dory Langdon, aka Dory Previn Shannon] taken from her second singer / songwriter studio album Mythical Kings and Iguanas from 1971. That song is followed by the final cover: "You'll Have to Scream Louder" written by Dan Treacy for the British post-punk band Television Personalities taken from the 1984 album The Painted Word. After this, Distractions continues with an also almost typical Tinderstick's composition with French lyrics: "Tue-moi" ['Kill Me'], where Staples with his English-French [sorry] does his best 'chanson' style, which probably only Brits and also some flattered French will perceive as something extraordinary. The song is something quite special in another way, as it's Staples' inspiration from and his thoughts on the assassination at the French venue the Bataclan in 2015 - a venue Tindersticks has visited several times. The album ends a bit like it starts - with a slightly more experimental track with tape loops and 'other electronics', although it still mostly sounds like Tindersticks in the slightly jazzy corner. In a way, the album is like a reminiscent of Staples' most recent solo, the album Arrhythmia from 2018, which is the first time you notice Staples experimenting with electronic devices. That album was also unusual for its rather long compositions.

All in all, Distractions is an album that offers both new and old, and which is unmistakably Tindersticks, who have seriously turned down on the arrangements. The well-known chamber pop element is only faintly present, and instead something experimental appears borrowing both from modern styles and from jazz.

Tindersticks continue to make fascinating music - it seems they have found their own slot in the alt. rock sphere with enough space to keep experimenting without losing artistic progression. And I'm tempted to ask 'when did this band really make a poor album?' It's definitely been a long time, and it certainly hasn't been the case since the band suffered internal conflicts by the turn of the century.

Recommended.

The front cover is credited Sidonie Osborne Staples - daughter of Stuart Staples & Suzanne Osborne.

[ 👍allmusic.com, Uncut 4 / 5, musicOMH 4,5 / 5 stars ]

Tindersticks "No Treasure but Hope" (2019)

die-cut vinyl cover

No Treasure but Hope
release date: Nov. 15, 2019
format: vinyl (LTD. die-cut clear vinyl) / digital (10 x File, FLAC)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,85]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "For the Beauty" - 2. "The Amputees" (4 / 5) - 3. "Trees Fall" - 4. "Pinky in the Daylight" (4,5 / 5) - 6. "Take Care in Your Dreams" - 8. "The Old Mans Gait" - 9. "Tough Love"

12th studio album by Tindersticks released nearly four years following the fine The Waiting Room (Jan. 2016), and like that, this one is produced by lead vocalist and main composer Stuart A. Staples. Since 2016 the band has released the live-album Philharmonie de Paris (Feb. 2016) and the soundtrack Minute Bodies - The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith (2017) [a documentary by Staples] in collaboration with the two French musicians, percusionist Thomas Belhom, and pianist and composer Christine Ott. Apart from that, Staples also released his second solo album Arrhythmia (2018) and he also recorded another soundtrack for a Claire Denis' film, High Life (Apr. 2019) - which shows that neither band nor Staples has been on a long break.

The current Tindersticks-quintet, consisting of Stuart Staples, guitarist Neil Fraser, bassist Dan McKinna, multi-instrumentalist David Boulter, and percussionist Earl Harvin all continue where they left us in 2016 with a hardly noticeable change of style with compositions reflecting a bolder use of strings as well as being slightly less jazz-oriented. By doing so, the album places itself at the centre of the most recent four studio albums by Tindersticks - meaning albums released from 2010 to 2016. The single tracks on this could virtually have been handpicked and replaced on any of the arbitrary four albums without disturbing a sense of coherency. Instead of a recording applying state-of-the-art multi-layered production method, the band instead recorded these songs live in the studio. And keeping that information in mind, this collection only appear even stronger, perhaps more vivid. There's still a maintained variation from song to song, but the end result is that of a tight and quite narrrow expression. It may not be the band's most daring nor their most original album, but in a way you could argue it sort of sums up all the qualities they have come up with in recent years: by creating their very own aesthetic of beauty within a strong chamber pop soundscape with a noticeable influence and inspiration from the world of jazz - utilising old-fashioned recording methods - ultimately ensures they don't sound like any other band around.

Cover and artwork are here credited Staples and his wife Suzanne Osborne.

No Treasure but Hope is yet another quality release by Tindersticks.

Highly recommended.

[ 👍allmusic.com, The Guardian 4 / 5, Gaffa.dk 5 / 6 stars ]

digital cover

Tindersticks "Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith" (OST) (2017)

Minute Bodies: The Intimate World of F. Percy Smith (soundtrack)
release date: Jun. 9, 2017
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,02]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Soundtrack album by Tindersticks to a film directed and written by Stuart A. Staples about British film pioneer and photographer Frank Percy Smith. The album is credited 'Tindersticks with Thomas Belhom and Christine Ott', and both French musicians, Belhom and Ott, have previously appeared on Tindersticks releases. Drummer Belhom appeared on both of Staples' first solo releases, the band's 2008 album The Hungry Saw, as well as on several soundtrack albums by Tindersticks. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Christine Ott first played with Tindersticks on the soundtrack to Claire Denis' 35 Rhums (2008) and then also on the soundtrack to Denis's film Les salauds (2013), and she appears here with her 'specialty instrument', Ondes martenot, as pianist, on Fender Rhodes, and as vocalist.

The album consists of 15 mainly instrumentals of varying length from 1:34 to 8:25 minutes and they are all experimental ambient with an electronic touch.

As an album, it relates to other Tinderstick soundtracks in that it may also be seen as neo-classical works, largely created as a supplement to a visual expression.

[ Film-trailer - "The Strangler" / "Percy's Dream" ]

Tindersticks "Philharmonie de Paris" (2016) (live)

Philharmonie de Paris (live)
release date: Feb. 2016
format: digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog Recordings - nationality: England, UK

Live album by Tindersticks recorded from one and the same live concert at the Philharmonie de Paris, Feb. 10, 2015. The album offers 12 tracks with a total running time at just under 57 minutes, and with songs stemming evenly from the band's many albums, but with main emphasis on releases since 2006.

The front cover was created by Staples' wife, Suzanne Osborne.

Best of 2016:Tindersticks "The Waiting Room" (2016)

The Waiting Room
relase date: Jan. 22, 2016
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,14]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 2. "Second Chance Man" - 3. "Were We Once Lovers?" (4 / 5) - 5. "Hey Lucinda" (feat. Lhasa de Sela) - 7. "How He Entered" (4,5 / 5) (live) - 8. "The Waiting Room" (4 / 5) - 10. "We Are Dreamers!" - 11. "Like Only Lovers Can" (4,5 / 5)

11th studio album by Tindersticks is much to the usual formula produced by the band's frontman, main songwriter and composer Stuart Staples. In addition to lead vocalist Staples, the band here consists of Neil Fraser on guitars, David Boulter on piano, Dan McKinna on bass, and with Earl Harvin on drums and percussion - the same quintet who stood behind the two most recent albums: Across Six Leap Years (Oct. 2013) and The Something Rain (Feb. 2012), which both present the simple and yet complex combo of chamber pop mixed with a strong inspiration from jazz.

The Waiting Room is yet another very fine studio release from a band who have really understood how to reinvent themselves after a few years of searching for past greatness.

The song "Hey Lucinda" is said to be a song begun a decade earlier that has had many takes on final versions. During a visit to Montreal, Staples recorded a vocal version with Mexican-American singer Lhasa de Sela, who appears here on the final version [de Sela died in 2010].

My first impression of the album was good, but after another six months of constantly playing the album, tracks as well as the whole album only kept growing on me, and I have to admit that these Brits have done it again and simply made Album Of The Year. The Waiting Room is no less than one of the band's absolute best and can only be recommended.

[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5 stars ]

2016 Favourite releases: 1. Tindersticks The Waiting Room - 2. Ukendt Kunstner Den anden side - 3. Bob Mould Patch the Sky

   

inlay photos by Richard Dumas

<  show lyrics >

~ ~ ~
"How He Entered"

"This is how he entered
How he came in
With an open heart and his eyes wide
A rubber in his pocket
Without socks, and a skip in his step
In an ill-fitting suit with something up his sleeve
A slither of a dream, a last gem
And the fear in his eyes of how dear it was held

This is how he entered
How he came in
Falling from the back of a transit van
Crumpled, desperate for relief from the humdrum
Each step a story, a song in the making
Each step cemented the living
The broken hearts left behind
They were just material to him
And how they would come to pursue him
How they would eventually come to drag him back in

This is how he entered
How he came in
With his hair cold he stood in the doorway
Like a lost dog holding his missing poster
Just to be sure - to be sure everyone knew just how lost he was
Telling his story he broke onions and sang songs
The street walkers carol
Soft tissue
The fear of emptiness
Planting holes to grow some money
These were his songs
And this was how he came in

This was how he entered
How he came in
With chips in his pocket
Just waiting for the chance to get into the game
With his head combed and the checks on his shirt just right
He sang of it but knew nothing of it
The house of cards by an open window
Pack of frazzles
An unsolvable puzzle
He knew nothing of what you needed from him
He knew nothing of giving
He only knew of his desires
He only knew of that woman

This is how he entered
This is how he came in

This is how he entered
How he came in"

~ ~ ~

Tindersticks "Ypres" (OST) (2014)

Ypres (soundtrack)
release date: Sep. 20, 2014
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,54]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Room 1 - Whispering Guns Parts 1, 2 and 3" - 5. "Room 3 - Sunset Glow"

Soundtrack album - or that's how it's often referred to, although it's perhaps more of a 'soundscape'. At least that's what a sticker on the album reads: "Soundscapes From The In Flanders Fields World War I Museum In Ypres, Belgium", i.e. "Soundscapes from the 'In Flanders Fields Museum' in Ypres, Belgium" for its permanent exhibition about World War I. In connection with the 100th memorial of the start of the war, Tindersticks apparently received a request from the museum to create the 'soundscapes' (or a sound collage) for a permanent exhibition. The music is purely instrumental and is credited Stuart Staples and Dan McKinna in collaboration.

The individual compositions may be hard to separate from one another - partly because their function is to act as sound collage for an exhibition space and thus is required to be played in infinite loops. Much in concordance to the music the band has composed for films by Claire Denis, the music differs significantly from the band's regular studio albums, while at the same time it carries a mark of having a close bond to a visual side that is hard to imagine. Still, Ypres is a different dark, insistent and rather gloomy collage, which with its locked-in mood fades out like an unsettling obscurity - something that might precisely underpin an exhibition about the horrors of war. The album appears as a more complete work than other of the band's soundtracks. It's rich in strings and reminiscent of outright Medieval times mixed with elements of post-rock. They are mostly slow compositions that beautifully unfold their wings and almost wraps up the listener in an intense mood saturated with the strongest emotions. In many ways it's a most distinctive work - also for Tindersticks, who shows itself here in a completely new and quite exciting territory.

Tindersticks "Across Six Leap Years" (2013)

Across Six Leap Years
release date: Oct. 14, 2013
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5) [4,18]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Friday Night" (4 / 5) - 3. "She's Gone" (5 / 5) - 4. "Dying Slowly" (4 / 5) - 5. "If You're Looking for a Way Out" (5 / 5) - 8. "A Night In" (5 / 5) - 9. "I Know That Loving" (4 / 5) - 10. "What Are You Fighting For?" (4 / 5)

10th studio album by the Tindersticks quintet released on Lucky Dog features the band's new interpretations of their own songs (except track #5 by Sandy Linzer and Ralph Kotkov) produced by lead vocalist Stuart A. Staples.

The starting point here is perhaps a little unconventional, perhaps even with a suspicion of a calculated financial strategy attempting to make profit from well-known material once again, but it all makes good sense already after a few spins. All tracks have completely new and much simpler arrangements, and some songs have simply been given so much more... attention and affection that they shine anew, all fresh. The music is generally stripped down to the very essentials of the individual track, and the whole album appears as a fulfilling refinement.

The front cover is from a painting ("Allsorts") by Robert Dukes.

Highly recommended.

2013 Favourite releases: 1. Arctic Monkeys AM - 2. Tindersticks Across Six Leap Years - 3. De Efterladte Alvorsord og etagevask

Tindersticks "The Something Rain" (2012)

The Something Rain
release date: Feb. 21, 2012
format: vinyl (LuckyDog10LP) / cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,94]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Lucky Dog / City Slang - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Chocolate" - 2. "Show Me Everything" - 3. "This Fire of Autumn" (4 / 5) - 4. "A Night so Still" - 5. "Slippin' Shoes" - 6. "Medicine" - 7. "Frozen" (4,5 / 5) - 8. "Come Inside" - 9. "Goodbye Joe"

reviewed Mar. 16, 2012

9th studio album by Tindersticks released on Lucky Dog and City Slang shows the band continuing on the new paths that they sought out on the predecessor Falling Down a Mountain (Jan. 2010). Since then, new guitarist David Kitt has already left again, which now leave us with a more permanent quintet containing the three original members Staples, Fraser, Boulter, and the two newest members: Dan McKinna and Earl Harvin.

Finally, the band in its new configuration has succeeded in producing really well-crafted new material! It's not because they have been really poor, nor boring. It has only taken the band a few years after reorganising to establish a new favourable dynamic. At times the band has seemed as if stuck to a formula, trying hard to come up with new ideas without really being able to evolve artistically, and they have occasionally sounded like a mere copy of themselves. It has left a taste of something unsatisfying about their albums, although I have rediscovered their releases from 2003-10 and have had the pleasure to admit that they actually were better than my initial assumption had told me. 'They were so thoroughly original, so why did they stop making fascinating music?' was my thoughts after acquiring Waiting for the Moon in 2003, and the same sensation crept in with the two successive albums. There was like nothing... cool about these releases and an absence of a 'wow' experience! They then released the 5-CD box set, the massive Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009 album (2011), which is a bit of a demanding collected work of film music for Claire Denis. The best parts are Nénette et Boni and Trouble Every Day. As soundtracks, they all suffer from being made as accompaning material to something visual that is absent, and it may be a challenging experience listening through the music to films you haven't seen. The individual works also have a common ambient element, which does not always go hand in hand with Tindersticks - but that's just an opinion.

The Something Rain expands the band's repertoire in the most positive sense. It combines Tindersticks, as you have come to know them: the sophisticated and lighter grey-blue chamber pop, Stuart Staples' crooning, melancholic and deep vocals and then 'The Something' else: the embrace and inclusion of a strong bond to jazz.

It's the rediscovery of the aesthetically beautiful with a completely new fully formed jazz atmosphere, which is combined with the band's foremost qualities and in this way they open up to a music that simply tastes surprisingly new. And it's not just old wine in new bottles, but... Tindersticks vintage. Imho, this is one of the best releases of 2012.

Stuart Staples & Suzanne Osborne's
joint book-project "Singing Skies"

The front-cover is an excerpt from the joint book-project "Singing Skies" [review] consisting of song lyrics by Staples and screen printings by his wife, Suzanne Osborne [link], who made the series "A year in small paintings - Skies, Sep. 2010 - Sep. 2011".

Tindersticks "Falling Down a Mountain" (2010)

Falling Down a Mountain
release date: Jan. 25, 2010
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: 4AD Records - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Falling Down a Mountain" - 2. "Keep You Beautiful" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Harmony Around My Table" - 5. "She Rode Me Down" - 7. "Black Smoke" - 9. "Factory Girls"

8th studio album by Tindersticks close to two years after The Hungry Saw (Apr. 2008) is the band's first and only studio album on 4AD Records. The band is now officially back as a sextet after having been reduced to a trio for a short period from 2006 to 2008 with Stuart Staples, Neil Fraser, and David Boulter from the original line-up. Here the three are now joined by the three new members: guitarist David Kitt, bassist Dan McKinna, who also played with the trio on the band's 2008 album as additional studio musician, and American drummer Earl Harvin [officiel trailer].

The band now continues a stronger experimental style, and the album has a distinct influence from jazz, which is to be more pronounced on subsequent albums.

Falling Down a Mountain received a better reception than its predecessor, The Hungry Saw, but in 2010, although, back in 2010, I saw it as just another slightly boring and uninspiring album from a band I had previously been much more excited about. However, I also admit to having changed my attitude towards the album, which a few years later I came to see in a somewhat more positive light than my original verdict told me. Best track here is undoubtedly "Keep You Beautiful", although other tracks are worth knowing. A slightly original tone and a more laid-back jazz feel hovers on top of the entire album, which may be seen as a new and welcome move as opposed to the more compact arrangements with grandiose orchestral strings that you'll notice on the band's previous albums.

The album cover is an excerpt from a painting by Stuart Staples' wife, Suzanne Osborne.

[ allmusic.com, Mojo, Uncut 4 / 5, Spin, Drowned in Sound 3, 5 / 5 stars ]

Tindersticks "The Hungry Saw" (2008)

The Hungry Saw
release date: Apr. 28, 2008
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 3. "The Flicker of a Little Girl" - 4. "Come Feel the Sun" - 6. "The Other Side of the World" - 10. "All the Love" (feat. Suzanne Osborne)

7th studio album by Tindersticks following Waiting for the Moon (Jun. 2003) is the band's first studio album in five years, and it's their first since being reduced to a trio, which here count lead vocalist Stuart A. Staples, guitarist Neil Fraser and multi-instrumentalist David Boulter. The album was recorded with a number of other musicians, including French drummer Thomas Belhom (who also contributed on Staples' two solo albums), violinist Sally Hibbert, as well as bassist Dan McKinna, who was later to become a permanent member of the band after this. The album is the band's final album on Beggars Banquet, and it's their first in a long subsequent series of studio releases with Stuart A. Staples as exclusive producer.

Compared to both the most recent album from 2003, as well as previous albums, this new collection appears less orchestrated, although strings are still a strong component of the soundscape.

Admittedly, I wasn't expecting much when this album came out. Imho, Tindersticks had begun an artistic downward spiral, and when I finally played something with the band, it was always earlier albums - music from before Waiting for the Moon. As with that, this one was a another disappointing experience listening to the album the first time, and I had probably made up my mind that this band had peaked and were by now only keeping the pot boiling by simply repeating and varying what they now had already produced. A decade further down the road, I took a different perspective of the period and of this very album. When you examine what they later released, you already here find a more playful and experimental approach to music, where they are in search of new ways, new paths for their music and which exactly point to their completely original later releases.

The album's printing, design and cover was made by Stuart Staples' wife, Suzanne Osborne, who also sings on track #10.

[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, PopMatters 3,5 / 5, Spin 3 / 5 stars ]

Tindersticks "BBC Sessions" (2007)

BBC Sessions (compilation)
release date: Jul. 16, 2007
format: digital (2 cd)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,58]
producer: Tindersticks
label: Island Records - nationality: England, UK

2 CD compilation from Tindersticks containing 26 tracks recorded at the BBC in the years 1993 to 1997. These are all familiar compositions - all released on the band's first three studio albums - and as such it's not recordings that are distinctively different from the original versions, so in that way, the album here is more of a collector's item sitting somewhere between live recordings and traditional studio releases, although it's always nice to hear a band made up of skilled instrumentalists.

Tindersticks "Waitting for the Moon" (2003)

Waitting for the Moon
release date: Jun. 17, 2003
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,42]
producer: Stuart Staples & Ian Caple
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Until the Morning Comes" - 2. "Say Goodbye to the City" - 4. "4.48 Psychosis" - 6. "Trying to Find a Home" - 7. "Sometimes It Hurts" (feat. Lhasa de Sela) - 8. "My Oblivion" (live)

6th studio album by Tindersticks following two years after Can Our Love... is like the predecessor produced by songwriter and vocalist Stuart Staples and Ian Caple - with the latter also co-producing the band's first two albums.

The album marks a clear stylistic change, where the releases from the second to the fifth album share much of the same musical settings and have roughly the same tempo. Waiting for the Moon, on the other hand, is more strictly a chamber pop release, where the arrangements are carry bolder use of strings and wind instruments.

The album was generally met by lukewarm reviews, and it wasn't really what I had hoped for neither. I tried to listen it, tried to be open to the new set of songs but they never really unfolded. It wasn't long before I had to realize that this was an immediate 'misfire' or if nothing else, the band's thinnest outing to date. I couldn't help thinking that the band was in a lack of inspiration, that with no new ideas they had turned on autopilot and were satisfied going through the motions adding new arrangements to outtakes without much success.

Apparently, the studio recordings for the album were not the easiest process with internal conflicts that the following years accumulated and ultimately led to a major change in the group's line-up.

After this, one of the band's founders, composer and violinist, Dickon Hinchcliffe recorded the soundtrack album for the movie "Forty Shades of Blue" (2005), and lead vocalist Stuart Staples followed in his footsteps by releasing his first solo album, Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04 (2005) and already the following year he released the solo follow-up Leaving Songs (2006), which (may / may not) have heralded the end to Tindersticks as a band. They played a one-off gig at London's Barbican Centre, performing the band's second full-length studio album and shortly afterwards three of the original members left Tindersticks: Dickon Hincliffe, bassist Mark Colwill, and drummer Alistair Macaulay, and Tindersticks were effectively reduced to a trio. Or that is the very simplified explanation for the band's major 'remodeling'. Another and longer explanation tells the story of lead singer Stuart Staples' ambiguous signals that may indicate he harbored desires to go solo with his 2006 album Leaving Songs. The album contains the following notes from Staples' hand: "These are songs written on the verge of leaving the things I loved and stepping into a new unknown life, both musically and personally. I was always aware that these songs were the end of something, a kind of closing a circle of a way of writing that I started so long ago and I knew I had to move on from."

Fortunately, Tindersticks and Staples didn't end the circle here, but Tindersticks in a 'Mark II' version was soon to rise from the ashes as another bird Phoenix.

The front cover is from a painting by Staples' wife, Suzanne Osborne.

[ allmusic.com 3 / 5 stars ]

Tinderticks "Don't Even Go There" (2003) (ep)

Don't Even Go There, ep
release date: Jun. 9, 2003
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer:  Stuart A. Staples, Ian Caple
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Trying to Find a Home" - 2. "Sexual Funk" - 3. "Everything Changes" - 4. "I Want You"

4-track ep by Tindersticks including the track "Trying to Find a Home" from the forthcoming album Waiting for the Moon as well as three previously unreleased tracks. I bought this on the day of release, and was disappointed but still hoped that the album would prove to be fine as usual. The only worthwhile track here is the one from the album.

Tindersticks "Trouble Every Day" (OST) (2001)

Trouble Every Day (OST) (soundtrack)
release date: Oct. 1, 2001
format: digital
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,16]
producer: Tindersticks
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Opening Titles" - 10. "Coré on Stairs / Love Theme" - 12. "Closing Titles" - 14. "Trouble Every Day"

Original soundtrack score by Tindersticks is the band's second for a movie by Claire Denis - here featuring Béatrice Dalle and Vincent Gallo. I still have to watch the movie one day but so far I just enjoy the soundtrack.

Generally, it's always a bit difficult to rate a full soundtrack album like this (apart from many Morricone soundtracks that often live very well on their own). Some tracks stand out like "Opening titles", which is repeated at the end in track #14. "Trouble Every Day". In fact there's a repeated theme in many of the songs, which is played by violins in the title track. Other tracks may fit specific film scenes very nicely but are not received easily as audio tracks alone, and I think that's the point about this album. Stylistically, it's still chamber pop but the album is more 'ambient' than anything they have released before.

Tindersticks "Can Our Love..." (2001)

Can Our Love...
release date: Jul. 3, 2001
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,64]
producer: Tindersticks and Ian Caple
label: Beggars Banquet - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Dying Slowly" (4 / 5) - 2. "People Keep Comin' Around" - 3. "Tricklin" - 4. "Can Our Love" - 5. "Sweet Release" - 6. "Don't Ever Get Tired" (4 / 5) - 8. "Chilitetime"

5th studio album by Tindersticks, this time released on Beggars Banquet and produced by Tindersticks and Ian Caple like their first two albums. This is Tindersticks almost as usual: it's nice chamber pop with violins, piano, horns, and jazzy drums accompanied by Stuart's haunting dark voice in sugary and melancholic arrangements. Usually, it has been a bit of a tradition that a Tindersticks' album was almost synonymous with many tracks, some shorter and scattered around to sew the whole thing together, but this time the band introduce several songs with a longer playing time than the 'ordinary' (track #2 at 7:11 min., #5 at 8:55, #7 at 6:06, and #8 at 7:34).

Stylistically, there's not much new under the sky, but it's still a pretty solid album that contains truly fine music.

[ allmusic.com 4 / 5, NME 3,5 / 5 stars ]

Tindersticks "Simple Pleasure" (1999)

Simple Pleasure
release date: Sep. 6, 1999
format: cd
[album rate: 4,5 / 5] [4,28]
producer: Stuart A. Staples
label: Island Records - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: 1. "Can We Start Again?" (4 / 5) - 2. "If You're Looking for a Way Out" (4,5 / 5) - 3. "Pretty Words" - 4. "From the Inside" [instrumental] - 5. "If She's Torn" - 6. "Before You Close Your Eyes" - 7. "(You Take) This Heart of Mine" (5 / 5) - 8. "I Know That Loving" - 9. "CF GF" (4 / 5)

4th studio album by Tindersticks released on Island Records is their first album to be produced exclusively by lead vocalist and songwriter, Stuart A. Staples. All songs except track #7 co-written by Hinchliffe are credited Staples with all music credits shared by the trio of Staples, David Boulter, and Dickon Hinchliffe, with drummer Al(asdair) Macauley as co-composer on tracks #5 and #8 - except track #4 credited Tindersticks - and then track #2, which is a song by Sandy Linzer and Ralph Kotkov, originally a song for New York vocal-trio Odyssey taken from its 1980 album Hang Together.
Despite a lukewarm reception, the album is in my top-3 of Tindersticks albums. Well, the fact is the band never really was among the best-selling bands, and their biggest success in terms of albums sold, the second album went as high as to number #13 on the albums chart list in the UK, whereas the debut only reached number #56, and the third album peaked at position #37. This one peaked as number #36 on the list, and in that perspective, it's actually the second highest ranked Tindersticks' album, which both respond to the reception part as well as on the band's status, generally speaking. The album is perhaps their most significant pop soul-shaped album, imho. The previous release Curtains (1997) has the same chamber pop and special Tindersticks melancholic feel to it as this one, and although the debut Tindersticks (1993) is already a modern classic, it doesn't have the same accurate stylistic and tight message as Simple Pleasure. All of their albums contain great songs but I don't find any other Tindersticks release without fillers - this simply has none, which makes it so brilliant.
The front cover is a Polaroid taken by Staples of wife Suzanne Osborne when carrying their son Stanley.

Show lyrics <- click...

~ ~ ~
"(You Take) This Heart of Mine"

"I've been watching you play
Getting caught
And when you turn your face your eyes are about
To take this heart of mine
And when you stop and stare long
They're so blind and I can't understand
You take this heart of mine
Hey little boy
Do you want the same thing as me
Cos I just feel
A little lonely

I've been wandering round again
Getting lost
It's not safe to be near those eyes
Are enough
To take this heart of mine
And when you stop and stare long
Well I could run if there wasn't a chance
You take this heart of mine
Hey little boy
Do you want the same thing as me
Cos I just feel
A little lonely

It's never going anywhere
It's just running away
Just a step outside of our love
Where's it now
To bring it all back again

There's a certain sound you know
Well I could run if there wasn't a chance

You take this heart of mine
Hey little boy
Do you want the same thing as me
Cos I just feel
A little lonely"

~ ~ ~

Tindersticks "Curtains" (1997)

Curtains
release date: Jun. 9, 1997
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,96]
producer: Tindersticks
label: This Way Up / PolyGram - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Another Night In" (5 / 5) - 2. "Rented Rooms" (4 / 5) (live) - 3. "Don't Look Down" - 6. "Ballad of Tindersticks" - 7. "Dancing" - 8. "Let's Pretend" (4,5 / 5) - 10. "Buried Bones" (4 / 5) - 12. "(Tonight) Are You Trying to Fall in Love Again" (4,5 / 5) - 13. "I Was Your Man" - 14. "Bathtime" - *16. "A Marriage Made in Heaven"
*Bonus on US-issue

3rd studio album by Tindersticks. Once again, the band delivers a really strong collection of compositions. The album title presumably refers to the art of acting, and that may also be found in many of the song lyrics. Two songs feature duets with actors, Ann Magnuson and Isabella Rosselini, or actually it only contains one song with Magnusson on the standard EU issue (track #10), but for some reason I was able to purchase a US-issue in Denmark, which also contains the unlisted track #16 featuring Rosselini.
I remember the album as a bit of a disappointment, which has to do with what I found the best about the debut. In my perspective, and from listening to "City Sickness" (from the debut album), Tindersticks was a band with obvious bonds to a post-punk style, but with their second album they had taken a different path and then this album is no return to what I thought they represented. Looking back over the years and the long list of albums and stylistic changes they have go been through, this album stands out as a corner stone, a marker point, where the band for the first time showed what their version of chamber pop was about, and that they were not bound to gothic rock but are much more than that. A few tracks on the first two albums carried some of the same jazzy tone and a quieter melancholic mourning that oozes throughout this one. This is one of their most harmonic and coherent albums. Two tracks are duets. The beautiful "Buried Bones" feature Ann Magnuson on vocals, and here it's obvious that she's not only an actor but is a skilled musician, and on the other hand there's "A Marriage Made in Heaven", a duet with actor Isabella Rosselini, which seems more like a [corny] gimmick too evidently displaying her not so gifted singing skills, and / or as a reference to the (epic) singing voice of Marilyn Monroe, but apart from that the album is highly recommendable and one of my favourites by the band.
I recall seing the band while touring with the album that Autumn - they played a great gig at Amager Bio, Copenhagen on Sep. 17 with Cornershop as warm-up band - and they were great too!
The cover art is credited Stuart Staples and his wife, Suzanne Osborne, who also contributed with a band portrait for the debut album.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]

<  show lyrics >

~ ~ ~
"Another Night In"

"Greed's all gone now, there's no question
And I can see you push your hair behind your ears
Regain your balance
Doesn't matter where she is tonight
Or with whoever she spends her time
If these arms were meant to hold her
They were never meant to hold her so tight
For the love of that girl
Greed's all gone now, the panic subsides
When I could run, pulling arms to love her
Try to put myself on on the inside

For the love of that girl
Tears swell, you don't know why
For the love of that girl
They never fall, they can never run dry
For the love of that girl

Promise is never over, never questioned it needed reply
But she could breathe deep into my neck
Let me know I'm just on the outside

[Chorus]

Greed's all gone now, there's no question
And I can see you push your hair behind your ears
Regain your balance
Doesn't matter where she is tonight
Or with whoever she spends her time
If these arms were meant to hold her
They were never meant to hold her so tight

[Chorus]"

~ ~ ~
"Let's Pretend"

"Let's not make it into a big thing
Let's not get lost in this
I know it is, I know we could
I guess we surely would
Let's pretend it's not
It doesn't mean a thing

Let's not blow it out of all sense
As though it meant so much
It's always thought about for weeks

Not everytime your lips meet mine, I think of her
But when her hands reach out, I think of you"

~ ~ ~

"(Tonight) Are You Trying to Fall in Love Again"

"My my, it doesn't matter what you say

From the start, I hang off every word you say
Oh, tonight, are you trying to fall in love again?
Does it make it all right?
Are you trying to fall in love again?
Now, I'm a hard man gone soft
The lines were so clear then
How did I ever get by?
There was a time I hang off every word you say

Every breath you blew, I was running to inhale
Oh, tonight, are you trying to fall in love again?
Does it make it all right?
Are you trying to fall in love again?

My my, there will be other days

It comes and goes, you know it never stays
Oh, tonight, are you trying to fall in love again?
Oh, tonight, are you trying to fall in love again?
Does it make it all right?
Are you trying to fall in love again?

Does it make it all right?

You're trying to fall in love again"

~ ~ ~

Tindersticks "Nénette et Boni" (OST) (1996)

Nénette et Boni (soundtrack)
release date: Oct. 21, 1996
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,33]
producer: Ian Caple
label: This Way Up - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Ma soeur" - 4. "Camions" - 8. "Petites gouttes d'eau" - 9. "Les cannes à pêche"

Soundtrack album by Tindersticks for a Claire Denis film of the same name. The album consists of 14 compositions, of which all except one are instrumentals. The song "Petites gouttes d'eau" is a newly rearranged version of "Tiny Tears" from the band's second studio album (aka Tindersticks II from 1995). Nénette et Boni has a total running length of 37 minutes.

This soundtrack marks the beginning of a long-time collaboration work with and for Claire Denis, which reaches into the new Millennium.

Tindersticks "Tindersticks (II)" (1995)

Tindersticks (II)
release date: Apr. 3, 1995
format: cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,96]
producer: Ian Caple, Tindersticks
label: This Way Up - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: *2. "A Night In" (4 / 5) - 3. "My Sister" (BBC Sessions) - 4. "Tiny Tears" - 9. "No More Affairs" (4 / 5) - 11. "Travelling Light" (4 / 5) - 12. "Cherry Blossoms" (4 / 5) - 13. "She's Gone"
*[not to be confused with 'Another Night In' from the forthcoming album]

2nd album by Tindersticks released on This Way Up and like the debut produced by the band and Ian Caple. The album is a very strong follow-up to their great debut, and as was with the debut, this is simply titled Tindersticks and therefore often attributed the letters 'II' to distinguish it from the self-titled debut. The track "Travelling Light" is a fine duet featuring Carla Torgerson of The Walkabouts on vocals. I know many consider this album as even better than the debut, only, I don't. Yes, it's tighter and it's possibly more like the style on their following albums. I just don't think it contains that many great tracks, and that's it's biggest weakness. Having said that, I still rate it among the best of 1995 - the band still outbeats the majority of artists at this point of their career with its highly original sound and style. Like the debut it was released as a double vinyl lp and it has a considerable long playing time at around 70 min. with a total of 16 tracks.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, NME, Vox 4 / 5, Rolling Stone 3 / 5 stars ]