Stuart Staples has been helming this beautiful and melancholy ship called Tindersticks for almost three decades. A chamber rock that is sometimes dark and austere in appearance, but whose very singular melancholy sets it apart from its obvious influences (Nick Cave, Tim Hardin, Scott Walker, Leonard Cohen, Velvet Underground, John Barry…). Autumnal sounds, hushed melodies leaning against a licked instrumentation, and always, this tightrope walker and tormented voice of Staples as narrator of a waking dream. The Nottingham band is a no man's land in contemporary rock, an island of refinement with its saving touch of vintage soul. A note for an image, a word for a memory: the style of Stuart Staples is at once literary, cinematographic and of great sensuality.
