Tindersticks


Tindersticks are an English alternative rock band formed in Nottingham in 1992. They released six albums before singer Stuart A. Staples embarked on a solo career. The band reunited briefly in 2006 and more permanently the following year. The band recorded several film soundtracks, and have a long-standing collaboration with French director Claire Denis.
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History

After the closure of Marc Riley's In-Tape Records, the band Asphalt Ribbons were left without a record label. They reformed as Tindersticks in Nottingham in 1992. They were named so after singer Stuart Staples discovered a box of German matches on a Greek beach. The lineup consisted of Stuart Staples, Dave Boulter, Neil Fraser, Dickon Hinchliffe, Al Macauley, and Mark Colwill. That same year, the band moved from Nottingham to London. They formed their own label Tippy Toe Records to release their first single, "Patchwork", in November 1992. Their first gig in London was at the Islington Powerhaus in December 1992.
Their self-titled first and second albums established their signature sound and received widespread critical acclaim. Their live performances, often augmented by large string sections and even, on occasion, a full orchestra, were well received. The live album The Bloomsbury Theatre 12.3.95 is a recording of one such concert. By the time of the third album, Curtains, however, it was clear that a change of direction was called for.
The fourth album, Simple Pleasure, lived up to its title with a series of snappy, direct songs influenced by soul music. The female backing vocals on several tracks, and the respectful cover of Odyssey's "If You're Looking for a Way Out", signalled the band's wish to move towards lighter, more soulful material. However, the inner sleeve's documentation of the number of takes each track went through was evidence that the band continued to adopt a painstaking approach to recording.
The fifth album, Can Our Love..., continued the band's soulful direction, in particular evidence on the tender "Sweet Release" and in the nod to The Chi-Lites in the title of "Chilitetime".
The sixth album, Waiting for the Moon, was more stripped down and introspective in nature, particularly on the harrowing "4.48 Psychosis" and "Sometimes It Hurts". Only the bouncy "Just a Dog" lightened the otherwise melancholy mood of the album.
In 2005, Staples embarked on a solo career and there was resultant speculation that the band had split. During this period, Staples produced two solo albums, Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04 and Leaving Songs. The title of the second album, and Staples' notes on it, indicated that change was in the air: "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."
In September 2006, the band played a one-off concert at London's Barbican Centre, performing their second album in full with a nine-member string section and two brass players, including former collaborator Terry Edwards on trumpet.
Staples later acknowledged that this show, while being a happy triumph, was also "tinged with sadness of the knowledge that the six of us had made all the new music we were going to make together." However, it also rekindled his determination to make a new album.
In 2007, a stripped-down line-up of three of the original band, Staples, Boulter and Fraser, spent time writing and recording in a newly equipped studio in Limousin, France. They were joined by Thomas Belhom on drums and Dan McKinna on bass, with Ian Caple engineering. The resulting album, The Hungry Saw, was released on Beggars Banquet in April 2008. Tindersticks played a number of other European dates during the summer festival season and also announced a winter 2008 European tour.
In 2010, the eighth studio album Falling Down a Mountain was released on 4AD/Constellation Records with a changed band line-up, with Earl Harvin replacing Belhom on drums and David Kitt, a solo artist in his own right, joining the band on guitar and vocals.
The group's ninth studio album The Something Rain was released in February 2012. The following tours in spring, summer and autumn, showed the band now touring in their again reduced 5-member core line-up, supported at selected gigs by Terry Edwards on horns.
In October 2013, after missing the band's 20th anniversary the years before, the band released their tenth studio album, the retrospective Across Six Leap Years, containing ten re-recorded songs from their back-catalog and from Stuart A. Staples solo album period. In the autumn of 2013 they toured several European capital cities in their Across Six Leap Years anniversary tour, supported by Terry Edwards on saxophone and horns and Gina Foster on backing vocals.
In 2016 they released their eleventh studio album The Waiting Room, followed by an extensive tour in February to May 2016.
Their 12th studio album, No Treasure But Hope, was released in later 2019 to positive reviews, with a tour planned for 2020. Ahead of these tour dates, the band released the four-song See My Girls EP along with a video for the title track.
U.S. and European tour dates were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why the core band focused on working on a new album during 2020. In January 2021, the band announced their thirteenth regular album Distractions, which was released on 19 February and charted at number 15 in the Offizielle Deutsche Charts' Album Top 100 in Germany. Their fourteenth album, Soft Tissue, was released on 10 September 2024.

Soundtrack work

Musical style

Their sound is characterised by orchestral backing, lounge jazz, and soul; the orchestrations of multi-instrumentalist Dickon Hinchliffe and the baritone of lead vocalist Stuart A. Staples are the band's hallmarks. Tindersticks augment their instrumentation with Rhodes piano, glockenspiel, vibraphone, violin, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, bassoon and Hammond organ.

Discography

Original soundtracks

Nénette et Boni — UK No. 104Trouble Every Day 35 Rhums / 35 Shots of Rum White Material Les Salauds Ypres Minute Bodies: The Intimate World Of F. Percy Smith Adolescents Stars at Noon 35 Rhums Avec Amour Et Acharnement

Singles

  • "Patchwork"
  • "Marbles"
  • "A Marriage Made in Heaven"
  • "Unwired EP"
  • "City Sickness"
  • "Marbles"
  • "We Have All the Time in the World"
  • "Live in Berlin"
  • "Kathleen" — UK No. 61
  • "No More Affairs" — UK No. 58
  • "Plus De Liaisons"
  • "The Smooth Sounds of Tindersticks"
  • "Travelling Light" — UK No. 51
  • "Bathtime" — UK No. 38
  • "Rented Rooms" — UK No. 56
  • "Can We Start Again?" — UK No. 54
  • "What is a Man?" — UK No. 90
  • "Trouble Every Day"
  • "Don't Even Go There EP"
  • "Trojan Horse"
  • "Sometimes It Hurts" — UK No. 60
  • "My Oblivion" — UK No. 82
  • "Friday Night"
  • "The Hungry Saw"
  • "What Are You Fighting For?"
  • "Boobar Come Back to Me"
  • "Black Smoke"
  • "Medicine"
  • "This Fire of Autumn"
  • "Slippin' Shoes"
  • "If You're Looking For A Way Out"
  • "We Are Dreamers!"
  • "Were We Once Lovers?"
  • "How He Entered "
  • "The Amputees"
  • "Willow"
  • "Pinky In The Daylight"
  • "See My Girls"
  • "You'll Have To Scream Louder"
  • "Man Alone "
  • "Both Sides of the Blade"
  • "New World"
  • "Falling, the Light"
  • "Don't Walk, Run"

Other albums

Solo albums and side projects

  • Alasdair Macauley - 3head - 3head
  • Alasdair Macauley - 3head - Blackwater
  • Alasdair Macauley - 3head - You Are More Beautiful
  • Neil Fraser - The London Dirthole Company - Fool's Errand/Stripshow
  • Terry Edwards & Neil Fraser - Beyond Harlem Nocturne
  • Stuart A. Staples - L'intrus
  • Stuart A. Staples - Lucky Dog Recordings 03-04
  • Stuart A. Staples - Leaving Songs
  • Stuart A. Staples - Souvenir '06
  • Stuart A. Staples sang on The Secret Place for Yann Tiersen's "Les Retrouvailles"
  • David Boulter & Stuart A. Staples - Songs for the Young at Heart
  • Stuart A. Staples also sang on This Light Holds So Many Colours for Rodrigo Leão's "A Mãe"
  • Stuart A. Staples - Arrhythmia
  • Stuart A. Staples - High Life
  • Stuart A. Staples - Un Beau Soleil Interieur
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Friday Night
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Keeping Mum
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Married Life
  • Dickon Hinchliffe, Al Macauley - Last Chance Harvey
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Winter's Bone
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Cold Souls
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Project Nim
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Texas Killing Fields
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Red Riding: In The Year Of Our Lord 1980
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - At Any Price
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Out Of The Furnace
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Locke
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Hateship Loveship
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Leave No Trace
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Yardie
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Ben Is Back
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Misbehaviour
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - The Third Day: Winter
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - The Lost Daughter
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Father Stu
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Daddio
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Firebrand
  • Dickon Hinchliffe - Prisoner 951
  • David Boulter - Yarmouth
  • David Boulter - Twelve Bells for Libuše
  • David Boulter - Lover's Walk
  • David Boulter - Tinnitus
  • David Boulter - Factory
  • David Boulter - Displaced
  • David Boulter - Five Nights In Maine
  • David Boulter - St. Ann's
  • David Boulter - ''Whitby''

Videos and DVDs

  • Curtains
  • ''Bareback - nine films by Martin Wallace''