Warm Up to Tindersticks
“Bathe in the city’s noise”
TINDERSTICKS
The Hungry Saw
Beggars Banquet
***** 4.5 / 5
I love bands like this, maybe mostly for the way they completely shatter the illusion of “genre,” expose it as something meaningless, something hollow and cheap that we lean on in record stores or at parties with lines like, “So, what kind of music do you like?” What kind of music do I like? Well, I like music that touches me. And I really like the TINDERSTICKS.
There’s something about getting a good recommendation from a friend. I remember years ago I had a job that brought me to the Post Office almost every day; and there was a clerk there, Eddie J., who I’d talk to about movies. He liked gangster films, stories set in New York and New Jersey, and he’d tell me about scenes in them that were shot in neighborhoods he used to live by or handball courts he used to use. He also liked comedies, and would tell me about watching them with his daughter, who he clearly adored.
One day he ripped a scrap off of the receipt roll and wrote down a movie title: Drowning Mona. Then he pushed it over to me across the counter, told me it was silly but hilarious, nodded, then said that he thought I’d like it. Turned out he was right, and soon I found myself lending my copy to friends, quoting it and cracking up–I even still do, so many years later. And every time it comes up, I think of Eddie J. over there at the Post Office, the way he would stand up by his chair, look toward the Please Wait Here sign standing guard at the front of the line, and say too-loudly, “I am here and I am your friend,” in the same tone that all the other clerks would just say, “Next.” And I remember our talks.
Every once in a while with movies or music, this will happen, and the piece almost becomes the person who recommended it to you. Every quote or song is another memory. It’s like a lifelong connection you forge with that someone. Even if later the piece loses its luster, whenever it comes up, you’ll still remember it tied to some emotion you felt of the person who shared it with you.
Even though the TINDERSTICKS have been around in England since the early ’90s, I hadn’t ever heard of them until Rodney, a friend who shared a year of classes with me, told me to check out their ‘08 release, The Hungry Saw. Over 10 years ago he first got into them, he told me, and the record he bought quickly became his favorite of all-time. Now, he said, The Hungry Saw was his favorite.
A pretty shining recommendation–but I still wasn’t sure. This was the first CD he’d suggested to me. We hadn’t musically consummated our friendship yet with an album recommendation and subsequent convo. What if I didn’t like it? Then I’d have to be polite when he’d ask after it, say something like, “Yeah…it was interesting. Not sure if it’s my thing, but interesting.”
Relationships can be tricky.
Right when I pressed play, though, I knew that my neurosis wasn’t warranted. The soft static-y sound in the opening, the beginnings of a melancholic piano line–and I was instantly hooked. What followed was a moody and ethereal record till the end, as heavy in instrumental depth of sound as it was in raw beauty and simplicity.
Whether you call them “alternative” or “indie” or whatever, TINDERSTICKS is a band with some serious chops. They blend elements of all kinds of music–but what probably hits me most are their soul and orchestral leanings. Stuart Staples’ vocals are some of the most heavy and weathered I’ve heard. In low and labored tracks like “Boobar Come Back to Me” or “The Other Side of the World,” they drone with the kind of hurt that turns beautiful just from how genuine it seems; in airier, smirk-inducing tracks, like “The Flicker of a Little Girl,” his vocals play like an old man thinking back on good memories, a life well lived. And the lyrics are equally strong, powerful and imagistic, conjuring up vivid scenes and tangible emotion.
What gives the music it’s weight though, the real strength behind the melodies, is how deceptively huge they are. There’s an incredible richness of sound here, walls of organs and glockenspiels and horns and strings. And every element (enough to need 23 musicians on stage at their shows) works together to form a sound inherently modern and robust, but not flashy or grandiose. So not flashy, in fact, that I’d go saw far to say that The Hungry Saw has an almost vintage vibe to it, a pure kind of emotional instrumentation where you might imagine a few suited guys in a shadowy lounge, crying as they play. It’s this dichotomy that makes the album special.
Everything comes together in this piece to make an album as skillful and sad as it is real and memorable. Rodney and I both graduated recently and he’ll be moving to Arkansas for grad school. But The Hungry Saw remains a CD I only look forward to to getting to know better, then exploring TINDERSTICKS’ back catalogue–raising my glass to Rodney in Arkansas every time I do.
Bare bones and acoustic, in studio. Dig it.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 10:10 am and is filed under cd reviews, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
