Tindersticks: No Treasure but HopeThree years since their last album proper, singer Stuart Staples decided Tindersticks' return called for something special. "I felt we needed to be able to make something meaningful," he says. No Tindersticks album has lacked meaning, of course, but these mavens of intimate, expansive moodsong dig deep and diversify beautifully on No Treasure but Hope. Rich in intuitive warmth, lush melodies and an inquisitive spirit, it's an album that casts a fresh light on Tindersticks' core qualities, bathed in the glow of a band intent on rediscovering what they can do.
For Staples, one rule proved fruitful: known routes were to be avoided. "The last two albums were gradually built to a point of being finished in our studio from moments of playing and recording together. When we figured out how to present the songs live, different things happened to them. This time, we wanted to reverse that - to do something that was about being committed to a song together in a moment.
"The aim to capture the band's onstage energy sparked a fast recording process. "Five weeks from the first notes recorded to the mastering," marvels Staples, reflecting on a stretch that included acoustic rehearsals around a piano, six days playing live in a Paris studio and one day in London to record strings/brass. That climate enabled these five most unselfish of players to really listen to one another: witness album opener 'For the Beauty', which seems to hover in the spaces between Dan McKinna's tender piano, Neil Fraser's milky guitar, Earl Harvin's brushed drums and Staples' soulful confessions.
Likewise, 'The Amputees' breathes in the interstices between its fertile title metaphor and fairground melodic swing. The melting swoon of 'Trees Fall' follows with tenderly attentive fluency, showcasing new flavours in the universal specifics of Staples' lyrics. "For years I've never written words down, they're just sung and written in my head. But a few years ago I started to write for the sake of writing words. I don't use all of them but they hold the things I want to say at a particular moment, which allows me to go back to them and invite them into a song.
"'Pinky in the Daylight' also occupies a sweet spot in Tindersticks history, not only because its sun-dipped lilt boasts one of the band's purest melodies. As Staples explains, "I've always written love songs but they're always, 'I love you - but...'. There are always problems! But I think of 'Pinky' as my first love song, which came as a surprise to me.
"Elsewhere, warm raptures and daring ruptures are deftly navigated. 'Carousel' benefits from the increased input of bassist/multi-instrumentalist McKinna, who contributes string/brass arrangements and piano parts throughout the album. The wisest of balms, 'Take Care In Your Dreams' joins the ranks of Tindersticks songs linked to their children;
meanwhile, 'See My Girls' breaks with known Tindersticks traditions in its teasingly layered narrative and bracingly controlled global sweep.
The lovely 'Old Man's Gait' flips the gender script to explore father-son legacies over weightless backing, its notes floating on the air between band-members. Finally, 'Tough Love' alights on soul turf before the title-track both brings the album full circle and opens it out, setting personal meditations on uncertain times to McKinna's piano.
The result is an album that upholds the band's career-long commitment tointerior exploration with a passion. If the symphonic ruminations on trouble and desire of Tindersticks' three 1993-7 albums established them as trend-averse explorers of dusky depth and tremendous reach, Simple Pleasure (1999) and Can Our Love... (2001) proved them equally adept at exploring contrasting textures within tighter, soul-slanted contexts. After 2003's twinkling Waiting for the Moon, and an emotionally generous live performance of their second album in 2006, the band said farewell to three old bandmates, leaving the trio of Staples, Fraser and keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist David Boulter to start again. McKinna and Thomas Belhom (drums) joined for the warming rebirth of The HungrySaw (2008), before Harvin took over on drums for the increasingly confident Falling Down a Mountain (2010) and The Something Rain (2012).
The band line-up thus solidified, recent work has armed Tindersticks' exploratory fervour with a fertile focus. Between compositions for the FirstWorld War commemorations (Ypres, 2014) and F Percy Smith's microscopic movies (Minute Bodies, 2017), 2016's The Waiting Roomcrackled with world grooves and sounds. Staples has since delivered an experimental solo album (Arrhythmia, 2018) and a soundtrack to Claire Denis' science-fiction film High Life, strengthening the band's productive ties to the filmmaker with vocal help (on 'Willow') from the actor Robert Pattinson.
Returning to Tindersticks, Staples brought with him "a deep sense of responsibility" for both the band and the philosophy behind their mid-2000s rebirth. "I wasn't interested in nostalgia," says Staples, "and I think everybody agreed with me, so we got our heads down and stuck to that. We'll never be a young band again, or flavour of the month. But in terms of connecting with the music, with people and with ideas, the last 10 years have probably been the best 10 years of the band.
" Staples sketched out and wrote the lyrics to the songs in autumn 2018 in Ithaca, Greece. "People here say that Ithaca is the end of your journey," he comments. "A final destination..." Meanwhile, the richly enveloping No Treasure but Hope opens its arms to new journeys for the taking.
1. For The Beauty
2. The Amputees
3. Trees Fall
4. Pinky In The Daylight
5. Carousel
6. Take Care In Your Dreams
7. See My Girls
8. The Old Mans Gait
9. Tough Love
10. No Treasure But Hope
