Tindersticks : classic or dud

Anyone seen the Asphalt Ribbons album for sale recently?
Or have a copy for sale, either CD or vinyl?

this dude sings like Basehead

the national guy sings like this dude

saw them last night in SF, accompanying segments of Claire Denis films as part of the SF International Film Festival. They aren't doing many of these shows so if they do another one near you, go, was exceptional.

http://www.filmlinc.com/film-comment/article/claire-denis-and-tindersticks - review of clarie denis sdtks box

LOL @ "we all have our croissants to bear"

New song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v1eFVOj4is

What happened to Staples' voice? It sounds an octave higher. I dig the song though.

This album's terrific. Opening track 'Chocolate' is a clear descendent of 'My Sister' from the second album and has a wicked narrative twist. Staples' voice is sounding great too, less pub singer more proper crooner.

I agree, it's a great album., The songs are just so much better than the last album, I'm really surprised by it!

Who's singing in Chocolate btw?

Well, not singing, speaking. That's not Staples is it?

it's David Boulter

Thanks! Do you rate the new album?

Haven't heard it yet but they just announced two nights in a comfy theatre in my town so I'm very happy. tbh I'm still not 100% convinced by the post-breakup lineup but it's growing on me.

<3 <3 <3 "This Fire Of Autumn"

there is a LOT on spotify. think it's gonna be a tindersticks monday tbh

I missed what happened with the break-up.

Half of them left, including Dickon Hinchcliffe who was the violinist and strings arranger so was key to their sound. They regrouped with a new line-up. AFAIK none of them has ever spoken in public about what caused the split although Staples has made it pretty clear that they needed a new direction at that time. He might have fired them for all I know.

I don't know if it's ironic that this "new direction" sounds like a return to old (great) form? It's why I like this album at least.

Yes, had realised half the band had gone.

What I meant is that I hadn't heard anyone talk about it ... which is rare these days ... and perhaps dignified.

That said, I haven't heard much talk about Staples' facial hair either.

finally a return to form. they had lost me after curtains. they did not seem to evolve anymore, i started to dislike their opulent sound. but here they have reinvented themselves. they sound more minimal, less thick, fresher and clearer. nd even staples voice is less in the foreground. very nice, the first big, positive surprise music-wise this year. somewhere i read they used a drum machine. do they? usually i cannot bear drum machines but here i don't mind.

finally a return to form. they had lost me after curtains. they did not seem to evolve anymore, i started to dislike their opulent sound.

interesting, I always felt that simple pleasure (the one that came after curtains) was the big shift in sound for them. they certainly needed to evolve at that point as curtains was a creative dead end, and I think they did so very effectively with the fourth album. the songs were snappier and had much more of a soulful influence. if you haven't heard it in a while I recommend you give it a listen.

thanks for the recommendation, anagram. i have never listened to "simple pleasures". the first two songs are different from the first three albums. sunnier and not as heavy. but the new album goes into a new direction and i think i prefer it.

This thread is really making me want to hear the new album. I haven't bothered with anything since Waiting For The Moon and haven't loved an album of theirs since Simple Pleasures. Those first four albums still stand up as classics, I'd love to hear an album from them on a similar level to those.

holy shit this new one is good.

great cover too imo:

http://cdn3.pitchfork.com/albums/17468/homepage_large.2ac0c753.jpg

"Chocolate" might be their best opener ever.

And speaking up for On Her Majesty's Secret Service as the best Bond film: instant classic.

Thought Falling Down A Mountain was a good album.

Yeah this new album is brilliant. After ignoring the last two albums when they came out I decided to give them both a go last week to see if I'd been missing out, they didn't really do a lot for me. The Something Rain is solid all the way through, no weak tracks. It's an album thats totally reminded me of why I fell for this band in the first place.

oh i got quite excited reading these posts but i really don't like that opening track. i don't like the sound of the guy's voice and it's kind of a clichéd story, no? the detail doesn't really add up to anything and the resolution is predictable.

i've liked a lot of the more recent records though, i think that "the hungry saw" has some of their very best songs.

"simple pleasure" is an amazing album.

I don't think any of the post-split albums come close to the heights achieved by the original line-up.

they are really a different band now.

i enjoy both old- and nu- tindersticks, i think the current incarnation's stuff is a little less contrived. maybe not the right word but a big part of 90s tindersticks was this sort of theatrically artificial world-weariness that has 15 years later become a legit world-weariness, it feels a lot more natural than like "curtains pt 7" would at this point.

that said i could totally use a couple more records mining that "simple pleasure" vein. prob the best 1-2 opening track combo i've ever heard.

Simple Pleasure isn't that world-weary though, is it? Curtains certainly was and I think they consciously strove for a new direction with the next one. Saying that though, Waiting for the Moon was very bleak for the most part.

"can we start again?" is as blasé a plea for reconciliation as i can imagine. dude's not saying oh i love you i was totally wrong please take me back, he's saying "i'm ready now" for the responsibilities and tedium of a meaningful relationship. it's world-weary, sure, but the deliberate incomprehension in re: how people actually think and feel is where the theatricality comes in. it's a romantic failed romanticism vs nu-tindersticks which to me is mostly and appealingly failed romantic failed romanticism.

Didn't enjoy the new album as a soundtrack to washing up this evening (though the kitchen stereo is a bit ropey and does make some music sound particularly rubbish).

Undecided whether the "twist" in Chocolate is nice, tender or forced though I do like some of the detail in the narrative.

chocolate is kind of dumb but the rest of the album is good. I don't hear this as that much of a drastic change from the last two albums (and I think 'waiting' was kind of the 'big comeback' after staples solo records). this album does remind me more of the first two albums than anything else they've done though.

frankly I don't hear that big a difference between the 'new' lineup and the 'old' band, certainly not on this album and I didn't when I saw them live with the clare denis films earlier this year.

well the big difference would obviously be the relative lack of strings (D Hinchcliffe's violin and also string quartets and so on, which he arranged) in the new line-up. they were totally pivotal to the old band's sound and one of the main reasons why I loved them so much. I don't think strings are entirely absent from the last three albums but if they are there, they are certainly used more as incidental colour than to carry the melody. the guitar is more to the forefront now and they sound a lot more like a conventional indie rock outfit than they used to, in my humble opinion of course.

Yeah I agree with you anagram. I get excited hearing there's a new Tindersticks out, but each one has been sort of a let down, too much rock band material. I also really like the other guys vocals, sometime more than staples.

simple pleasures is their best album y'all. i've said it before, i'll say it again.

and each subsequent album has been disappointment of some degree or another. the response to each of them seems to be the same on ILM: no, this one is really good, it's a return to form, not like those previous albums. i guess can our love... is the one album that seemed to garner the most consensus in terms of being a letdown.

i meant to say, the initial excitement (re. each of their albums of the last 10-12 years) seems to settle longer-term into a sense that it wasn't really all that great.

i'll give this one a go i guess.

i guess can our love... is the one album that seemed to garner the most consensus in terms of being a letdown

no I love that one!

My favorite Tindersticks album is still the first one which was always less string heavy than the others.

I love certain songs from Can Our Love, People Keep Coming Around and Dying Slowly both are great upbeat songs with devastatingly sad lyrics, one thing Tindersticks do well.

Dying slowly is funny.

Anyone bought the Singing Skies book of Staples' lyrics?

I so wish this was actually by *the* Stuart Staples:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Not-Normal-Behaviour-Stuart-Staples/dp/1843751364/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_5

Any way, new soundtrack and album coming up in the next month. The former is actually supposed to be out already but has been delayed.