I got quite excited when I heard Peel say that this 28/5/93 show featured a session from Tindersticks. My over-riding feeling was “Good, now perhaps I’ll get to see what all the fuss is about.”
I’ve been aware of Tindersticks for over 30 years. They probably first entered my consciousness, when I was leafing through an issue of NME or Melody Maker and saw a photo of Stewart A. Staples framed over the shoulder of a string quartet in subdued lighting at somewhere like the Royal Festival Hall. In my mind, that photo - whether it existed or not - summed Tindersticks up. Concert hall rock, to be listened to, sitting down and inviting applause after each song, rather than cheers. And in the mid-1990s, I wasn’t really looking for that from the bands that I wanted to engage with.
This was entirely my own prejudice coming to the fore and it’s one that had remained with me given that, prior to hearing this session, I’d never knowingly listened to anything by Tindersticks. Well, that’s not entirely true. Their long collaboration with French film director, Claire Denis meant that I would have heard their soundtrack to her 2013 film, Bastards, but I can’t remember any of the music from it.
At time of writing, Tindersticks have released 25 albums (14 orthodox ones and 11 soundtracks), but when they went into Maida Vale to record this session on 27 April 1993, they were right at the beginning of their journey. Their debut album was six months away from being released - in fact, I’ve recently listened to some of the first John Peel show to be broadcast in the week of its release.
I’m rather jealous of Tindersticks fans. The band were always critically acclaimed, but that never seemed to translate into great commercial success. Their highest charting album in the UK, their eponymous second album, released in 1995, peaked at Number 13. Of the subsequent studio albums that charted, none went higher than Number 36.* Their highest charting UK single placing was Number 38 for 1997’s Bathtime. Even the aforementioned debut album got no higher in the UK than Number 56, but Tindersticks continued to put out music unabated. There was always a label somewhere willing to distribute them. Despite a brief hiatus between 2005 and 2008, they never lost track of one another, they endured and they worked.
They clearly mean a lot to some people, and I wish that certain bands and artists I’ve cherished over the years whose careers shrivelled up due to commercial indifference or their own bad choices had been similarly indulged. But, all that considered, the inescapable truth hit me as I listened to this first Peel Session. They were good enough to merit special treatment, and had I heard it in 1993, I’d probably have been hoping that someone had their back, because the talent shown in the three tracks I’ve highlighted here deserved to be nurtured and cared for.
The video features all of the songs from the session, taken directly from Peel’s 28/5/93 show. The only one I wouldn’t have included on the metaphorical mixtape was the second track, Tye Die (runs from 6:31 to 10:24). It’s a narrow miss because the band do a wonderful job of creating a spookily, malevolent atmosphere, but their work is undermined by Staples’s drawling, downbeat vocal which sounds like he’s trying to club sing an autopsy report. A look at the lyrics shows he’s only singing a rather dreary attempt at a Brothers Grimm style nursery rhyme.
Issues over vocal styling briefly put a question mark over the session’s opening track, Raindrops. Peel may have thought that Staples was trying to channel Leonard Cohen, but I heard Nick Cave, myself, which is a far riskier proposition when it comes to trying to keep a listener onside. However, it’s impossible not to take onboard the lessons that Raindrops imparts. It’s a story of a love gone stale, one where all the little quirks of the partner that were once thought endearing now only serve to alienate. This has gone both ways, leaving an atmosphere of sterility hanging over the household.
What’s worse is that both parties know that the relationship has died, and it’s implied that they could have walked away from each other long before this point, but they haven’t and now they can’t. The decision to end the track on a fade out is inspired, given that it suggests the crushing, ongoing ennui of a relationship that has desiccated itself into a mutual obligation instead of a joyous meeting of hearts.
It’s a reminder to couples everywhere that the biggest threat to a relationship is not adultery, but complacency. In fact, stop reading this for a few minutes if you can, go and find your partner, and shower them with enough affection for a few minutes until they give you a look of love rather than indulgence. And make time for it everyday.
Welcome back, lovers everywhere.
My favourite track of the session is the third one, Her. You’ll need to be a little patient with it, as the opening 45 seconds involve a touch of acoustic warm-up to set the mood, but once this turbo-charged cante flamenco** takes off, it’s a wonderful listen. It’s possible to see Her as linked to both Raindrops and the final track in the session, Drunk Tank. I mentioned how Raindrops suggested that the fossilised couple in it had, somewhere along the line, passed up on an earlier opportunity to end their relationship: With our only chance to jump/Neither of us had the guts., but Her catches Staples in a moment when he’s recognised that he has to make the jump away from something he can no longer support. He’s terrified, but cautiously resolute:
Feel like I’ve been dancing/The lights have finally come on.
Just waiting for my eyes, adjusting/ See how ugly I’ve become.
She asked me for no promises/I made them to myself
I’ve given myself no choices now/It’s the only way out.
Nevertheless, he makes the choice, in spite of the short term pain and fury, it will release. Drunk Tank finds him still stuck in the aftermath of the break and having to manage the fallout. As the title suggests, he does this primarily by taking himself out at night and drinking to forget. The implications are that he’s walked away due to his own character deficiencies:
I was the one/I always stayed out so late.
Always forgiving my inconsideration
It’s a different story/When you can never go home again.
I’ve seen some theories floated that Drunk Tank concerns domestic violence, and lines like:
My hands came back today/Finally set themselves free.
No more fists on the end of my arms/Just these hands trembling.
give that theory credence. If it’s paired up with the feelings of self- disgust that Staples expressed in Her, maybe the break was forced by him being thrown out or forcibly removed from his former lover’s presence. What struck me though when listening to Drunk Tank is the sense that it’s a night time song playing out just as the dawn of a new day is starting to break through. And contrary to the common trope of a new day heralding rebirth and fresh chances, here the approaching sunrise is seen as something to be frightened of. In the cold light of day, your mistakes and failings show up far more clearly than they do when you can hide in darkened buildings, within the bottom of a glass, or under the covers at police accommodation. And through a combination of shrieking violin, spectral high piano notes and a relentless grinding guitar/bass riff, we’re thrown out in to a street as a new morning breaks, the raindrops start falling and every door to home is slammed shut.
The four tracks in this session would all feature on Tindersticks’s mammoth debut album, which was released in the UK in October 1993. As the band wrote to Peel after recording this session, they would start touring in September. The summer would be a gig-free time - violinist, Dickon Hinchcliffe was spending it in Mexico - but it would at least allow the band time to recharge their batteries as they headed out to take their songs of heartache and heartbreak out to the people as the nights drew in, the weather got colder and somewhere, they would be forcing someone to confront some kind of unpalatable truth about themselves.
*A live album, The Bloomsbury Theatre 12.3.95 peaked at Number 32 in the UK album charts.
** A look at the cover art on their first album shows that flamenco culture was obsessing the band, somewhat, at the time.
Video courtesy of Vibracobra23 Ennui.
All lyrics are copyright of their authors.
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