Falling Down a Mountain

After eighteen years, they still soldier on… After a somewhat revised version ofTindersticks broke their five-year recording silence with 2008′s The Hungry Saw, it took less than two years for the group (again with a few modifications to the lineup) to compound that successful return with another new album — their eighth overall — which stands as perhaps even more of an achievement and pleasant surprise than its very fine predecessor. While Saw offered a few rare glimmers of positivity and sweetness from Stuart Staples and company, it was essentially business as usual for the perennially moody Britons. Falling Down a Mountain isn’t exactly a major reinvention, either, but it does back up the golden-hued sky gracing its cover with some of their most upbeat and optimistic songs to date (keep in mind those are relative terms), and a liberal extension of the looseness they’ve been gradually settling into since 1999′s Simple Pleasure.

The six-and-a-half minute title track is immediately striking, with its simmering, asymmetrical, jazzy groove buoying a hypnotically simple vocal riff and some uninhibited soloing from trumpeter Terry Edwards. “Harmony Around My Table” is a bouncy soul-pop number that might hardly be recognizable as Tindersticks if not for Staples’ inimitable quavering baritone (as always, an acquired taste, like fine wine), while the low-key lovers’ duet “Peanuts” sports a charmingly simple, slightly silly lyric, and the twinkling ballad “Keep You Beautiful,” though a typically mellow affair, is uncharacteristically, almost achingly sweet. (more…)

To be honest, I’ve never really gotten over Tindersticks’ eponymous second album (sometimes called Tindersticks II). It’s flawless. I come back to it every winter, as if there’s something about this uniquely British melancholia—the sweeping string arrangements, Stuart Staples’s haunting baritone (enough to make Nick Cave sound positively pubescent), lyrics of regret and longing—that simply fits with desolate, snowy landscapes.

It is, really, a seasonal thing: like clockwork, when December arrives, I find myself tempted to place the spoken-word nightmare of “My Sister” on every mixtape I make. I get lost in sordid lyrical gems like “Do you ever want to take that knife and discover?” The album’s most chilling slow-burners—“A Night In”, “Tiny Tears”, “Mistakes”, “Talk to Me”—begin sparse, with Staples’s lower-than-low crooning accompanied by little more than a bass line. They build into something best identifiable as catharsis, all swelling strings and bleating horns and messy emotional climax.

The follow-up, Curtains, was nearly as good. But then, somewhere around 1999’s Simple Pleasures, something funny happened. The group left the bombast behind, abandoned its epic album lengths, embraced neo-soul influences. (more…)

Consistency, medieval historian David Carpenter claims (and if he isn’t relevant to a review of a well established indie rock outfit then I don’t know who is), can be sitting in an armchair. In the context of medieval British kings, I assume he meant that if you are consistently bad, or leave no variation in your work, this can be counterproductive. Stuart Staples, Tindersticks’ frontman, would make an excellent medieval king.

Tindersticks started out with two eponymous albums (with the suffix of I and II added by fans for reference) that were lengthy, sprawling numbers featuring mumbly vocals, cracking guitar lines with rough edges, and Staples also showed his prowess for orchestration, knowing just the right moment for a soaring string accompaniment to compliment his tender, literary lyricism. Since then the Sticks (as I’ve decided to dub them) have branched out, making shorter albums but with the band ever changing, venturing into the realms of soul and jazz. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before Tindersticks were writing moody instrumental pieces for Clare Denis’ films, the latest of which being the boring 35 Shots of Rum – shame about having to sit through 100 minutes of unadulterated arthouse pretentiousness, but at least I was treated to a decent soundtrack. Staples even threw in a couple of solo albums for good measure, too. (more…)

Having split with longtime band members and co-founders Dickon Hinchliffe, Alasdair Macaulay, and Mark Colwill, the three surviving members of Tinderstix — Stuart A. Staples, Neil Fraser and David Boulter — spent a great deal of time writing together and, with the help of some additional players, wrote and recorded 2008’s The Hungry Saw. Demonstrating a more pared-down version of their eloquent soul without the assistance of Hinchliffe’s velvety instrumentation, Staples, Fraser, and Boulter proved they were still very much in possession of their mojo. With 2010’s Falling Down A Mountain, the remaining trio have added three new players to the mix and have also, in the process, crafted a lively and thoroughly original new set that manages to capture a timeless feel of nostalgia all the while remaining effortlessly modern.
(more…)

Around the turn of the last decade, a lot of people – not least the band’s own fans, perhaps – had started taking the Tindersticks for granted. A brand name guaranteeing sensitivity and class, sure, but also a force which was, if not spent, at least unlikely to surprise us again. The ingenuity of their early ’90s releases, which saw them hailed as Scott Walker singing for John Barry, or Lee Hazlewood performing with The Bad Seeds, had settled into a rather predictable broodiness. They’d claimed their turf and stuck to it religiously.

After 2003′s Waiting For The Moon, there followed a five-year hiatus for the Nottingham-formed band. An ambivalence about what they were doing had lurked latently for some time: even 1997′s Curtains had been made under the covert working title of “The Last Tindersticks Album”. Now, baritone Stuart Staples released two solo albums while relocating his family to France. He set up Le Chien Chanceux studio, where a slimmed-down lineup convened for informal sessions resulting in 2008′s The Hungry Saw. Live shows proved fruitful (not least a headline slot on Uncut’s stage at the Latitude Festival, and top billing – above Big Star! – at London’s Serpentine Sessions), and the group rediscovered their drive.  (more…)

It can’t be easy; critically-lauded at the start of your career, then just a handful of years later, you’re largely ignored by the music press and almost considered a niche interest. What do you do, exactly? Do you just carry on doing what you were doing before, in the aim of finding whatever it was that propelled you to such lofty heights in the first place? Or do you change completely, hoping that your new-found direction will earn you some kudos for not resting on your laurels?

That’s been the dilemma facing Tindersticks since the late 20th Century, and it’s an extremely unfair position for them to be in. Almost victims of their own success, their opening trilogy of albums (self-titled releases in both 1993 and 1995, and 1997’s Curtains) were irresistible baroque chamber-pop, full of surprises and, unusually, never outstayed their welcome at over an hour. However, the world moved on and since Tindersticks didn’t see fit to re-invent the wheel, the world also largely lost interest. After Waiting for the Moon in 2003, they called it a day, only to return in 2008 with The Hungry Saw, but only half the original band.

History lesson over, what’s Falling Down a Mountain actually like? In a nutshell, it’s a triumph as well as being probably the least Tindersticks-esque (maybe that should be “Tindersticksian”?) album of their career. The core ingredients are still there: Stuart Staples’ polarising, treacle-rich baritone, beautifully haunting string arrangements and the pervading sense of disappointment and loss. However, add to this a willingness to diversify and be imaginative, and Tindersticks are once more extremely deserving of your time. (more…)

All credit to Tindersticks for cornering the market in velvet-draped, late-night, orchestral indie-lounge cabaret. The trouble is, when you’re the sole proponents of such a tiny sub-genre, there’s not much room for manoeuvre. Hence why they have essentially released the same album – the same very good album, mind – approximately once every two years since the mid-’90s.
Falling Down A Mountain, though, pushes a few new boundaries – and whilst it’s not the mainstream crossover album to bring them untold riches, it does mark a newfound spirit of adventurousness. Of course, the music’s still resolutely afterhours in tone, and Stuart Staples still sounds like the missing link between Roland Gift and Paul Shane. But the melancholy club style is at least partly laid aside, introducing both dry mirth and disconcerting menace.

The title track opens the album with a distinctly jazzy feel, though it’s the squeaky, mournful avant-garde trumpet and rattly percussion sound of Soft Machine rather than the smoky jazz-club style one might expect. The sense of claustrophobia fits Staples’ voice perfectly, which kicks in (more…)

On the Tindersticks website recently, there was a video splash page announcing the new album that featured footage of the band playing its title track and introducing them one at a time. The first member mentioned was keyboardist and co-founder David Boulter. He’s one of the architects of the band’s sound, and his piano and organ have been signatures of the band for almost 20 years. And in the video he was playing… tambourine. His big moment on camera didn’t show him doing what he does best. There is something perversely appropriate about this– Tindersticks have always made music that thrives on their lack of egos, and here Boulter was just doing what the song asks for.

The track in question is an odd one, opening the band’s eighth album (not counting soundtracks), and in terms of vocals it’s more of a mantra than a song. There are three lines of lyrics, sung over and over in different combinations by smoky-voiced Stuart Staples and bassist Dan McKinna as the band provides jazzy drumming and wiry guitar figures. Longtime collaborator and satellite band member (more…)

Falling Down a Mountain, Tindersticks’ eighth album, is the sound of a band rediscovering themselves. Its immediate predecessor, 2008’s The Hungry Saw, felt an afterthought. That record ended a five-year hiatus during which it seemed – judging by singer Stuart Staples’ budding solo career ­– that Tindersticks might have ground to a terminal halt. In and of itself, The Hungry Saw still sounds the runt of the group’s generally impressive litter of melancholy soul. But this, their first collection for 4AD (and first with a new line-up including drummer Earl Harvin and guitarist David Kitt),­ represents a significant recovery of nerve.

They’re certainly in no mood for compromises: Falling Down a Mountain opens with the six-and-a-half-minutes of insistent, monotonal jazz of the title track. Mercifully, this fails to set the scene for what follows, as the album is dominated by the band’s whimsical, playful side, a usually dormant but altogether delightful aspect of their character. Harmony Around My Table sidles to a sauntering Motown beat, Staples all but grinning audibly through an introduction of Tom Waits-ish balefulness: “Found a penny, picked it up / All the day I had some luck / But that was two weeks last Tuesday / Since then there’s been a sliding feeling.” (Tellingly, the doo-wop coda trills merrily along for half the song’s length – a sign of a band having fun if ever there was one.) Peanuts, a duet with Mary Margaret O’Hara, is a mordantly hilarious dialogue irresistibly evocative of the deadpan melodramas of Lee Hazlewood and Ann-Margret. (more…)