Again, I’m referencing myself. This will probably be the last album I post on, however, that I’ve written a review for in the past. So no biggie. The rest should be new.

To me, writing-wise, time exists in dog years. I look at what I wrote about this album 2 years ago, for example, and even though my feelings haven’t changed, the way I tried explaining them feels totally foreign. So much of it feels bulky, labored over until all the texture’s gone. The concerns are the same, the way I “read” this record, but the layout feels long and 7 years away–not a measly 2.

CLICK HERE to read what I wrote about Tinderstick’s The Hungry Saw a couple years ago. And see below for a quick couple of my favorite tracks off this dark, bright and beautiful record.

I’m totally psyched about this announcement but too busy with other stuff to give it the full write-up that it deserves. Check out my review of TINDERSTICKS’ amazing last album, The Hungry Saw, HERE.

The Essentials:

• The upcoming album is called Falling Down a Mountain
• It is their 8th studio release
• Hits streets in Europe Jan. 25th (on 4AD), N America Feb. 16th (on Constellation)
• What I love about TINDERSTICKS is that their sound is this indefinable mix of simplicity and grandeur, these shifting tones, haunting and bright, dark and airy, almost as if it wallows in sadness the same as it does beauty (if it’s even possible to “wallow” in beauty). They’re like a smell that reminds you of everything perfect, and everything heartbreaking, about someone that you’ve lost. They’re a figure from the past dressed in today’s clothes. They’re an old phonograph player from the ’20s, littered in stickers of THE SMITHS and THE BEATLES.

Keep in mind, this is TINDERSTICKS in a kind of second creative wind. It was a whole 5-year’s time between their 2008 release The Hungry Saw and its predecessor, Waiting for the Moon; now, with Falling Down a Mountain, they’re pumping them out like gangbusters. Am I the only one who thinks there’s something cool and kind of special about being a part of that?

Check out what the band has to say about the album, the full cover and Falling Down a Mountain’s first single, “Black Smoke,” attached after the break.

TINDERSTICKS on the making of Falling Down A Mountain:

“Our last album, The Hungry Saw, was our first in five years. We didn’t really know what to expect on its release; we had just six concerts booked, and everyone was a little nervous…

That was April 2008. The success of those concerts, including the Royal Festival Hall in London and the Folies Bergere in Paris, took us all by surprise and led to seventy more shows in Europe and the US – ending with a beautiful summer’s evening headlining The Serpentine Sessions in Hyde Park in July of 2010.

In our ‘downtime’, we have scored 2 film soundtracks for Claire Denis: the much loved and critically acclaimed 35 Shots Of Rum and, due for release in the new year, White Material, which stars Isabelle Huppert. Somewhere during that time, we were also commissioned to create the music for the Louis Vuitton summer collection in Paris.

From those nervous beginnings a new unity and sense of direction grew. Where once our touring days were spent hanging around, killing time, now we found ourselves cobbling together acoustic rehearsals for new ideas in dressing rooms and venue corridors. There was a growing need to explore and we quickly started working in the studio.

Very soon this work became Falling Down A Mountain, our eighth studio album. Recorded at the band’s own Le Chien Chanceux studio in rural France and at ICP in Brussels between May and July 2009 and mixed at Le Chien’ in September and October.

With hindsight, The Hungry Saw now seems like an album made within the confines of what we knew; in making Falling Down A Mountain those boundaries became irrelevant.

The title track was borne out of a collection of moments; a dreamed idea recorded into a mobile phone in the night evolving into a spontaneous recording with the band, Terry Edwards’ trumpet (we didn’t play him the song, just gave him some clues, ran the tape and he played into the silence), singing with David Kitt and his great overdubbed guitar… All, more or less, made in one or two takes. Sometimes you just get lucky.

From the dream of building Le Chien’ three years ago, this is the first recording that gets close to what we have been looking for and gives all the effort some meaning.

The album ran on from there in many different directions, but always with a shared feeling between all the musicians and a sense of discovery towards the ideas. Highlights were many and varied: singing a duet with Mary Margaret O’Hara; new additions to the group in the shape of Earl Harvin (drums and vocals) and David Kitt (guitar and vocals) brought with them new colours to the music, and their voices combining with bassist Dan McKinna’s realised a long dreamt of “vocal section” within the band. In addition, Jo Fraser and Andy Nice, who have played a big part in our soundtrack work, provided some great flute and cello moments.

We hope you enjoy.”

—

Listen to the first single, “Black Smoke” HERE

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.