Brightest Young Things

90's UK favs Tindersticks are back after a long hiatus. Beggars Banquet released The Hungry Saw in April of last year, with a sound that pretty much continues right where they left off, which means the prozac still isn't working. And that's the way we like them.

They'll be performing at 9:30 Club tomorrow (Thursday, 3/5/2009) along with the excellent Dawn Landes. We asked the band to send us some tracks from the new album and give us a little commentary. Keyboardist David Boulter obliged. And he actually seemed pretty happy about it.

A beautiful song. I think Stuart really took a step up in his song writing with this. I've known Stuart a long time, from the days he used to shout his lyrics while swigging on cough medicine. One of the first, and my favourite songs, I heard him really sing was For Those Not So Beautiful, which eventually appeared on our second E.P.- Marbles. All The Love is another of my favourites already. I just felt it's magic straight away. It's made of two or three acoustic guitars, looped, which were built on with Bass, Cello, Bells and Stuart's wife, Suzanne's vocal. One of many great moments for me making this album. We miss Suzanne's vocal playing live. I've been trying to play her melody on vibes, which have a similar haunting feeling to the vocal, but not as magical.

Songs like this are what make being a musician, and in Tindersticks, so fulfilling.

This is one of those Tindersticks moments I really love. The song just fell out of my head, sat at our very old, and not really working, Lowrey organ. It one of those old home organs, full of buttons and switches, that takes four people to move it. Rhythms like Tango and Beguine were probably already past it when it was made. I think the rhythm used is a March. The organ was set up in Stuart's tiny garage studio and I was just playing. Luckily, Stuart recorded the event. Around the same time we recorded a song for his first solo album, Lucky Dog Recordings, called Friday Night, on the same organ.

For a long time it felt complete. Stuart suggested a string arrangement be added, which at first I didn't like the idea of. I liked it being this small, self contained piece. Lucy Wilkins, whose been a part of our string section on most recordings since the first album, did the arrangement. And I think she added so much without taking any of the original mood away.

Another song that started with a loop. This time Stuart doing various sawing sounds. I think we planned to replace it with real sounds but it stuck. One of the early songs we started when myself, Neil and Stuart got together to see if Tindersticks had more music to make. It took a while to evolve. The recording was built up over time, maybe from that very first rehearsal take. I like the freedom, the looseness it has. It's also very important lyrically, with it's feeling of destroying to (possibly) rebuild. Could be about love, your life, or just the band you're in. I never discuss Stuart's lyrics with him, unless I'm uncertain about his intentions. That way the songs take on a personal meaning for me. Perhaps he's just singing about a bit of carpentry he's doing in his shed.

It's very central to the album, which why it became the image and title too.

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Tindersticks
w/ Dawn Landes
3/5/2009, 7pm
9:30 Club
$25
http://www.930.com/
http://www.tindersticks.co.uk/

Photos by Richard Dumas