So, the second coming of the Tindersticks reformation is upon us (following 2008’s The Hungry Saw), and the band don’t sugar it for the hummers and hawers. The opening title tune may be one of their darkest but also most intoxicating moments, a dirty noir improvisation featuring trumpeter Terry Edwards at his most jazz devilish, recorded in a couple of takes with a little help from collaborator David Kitt, plus a driving pulse courtesy of new skinsman Earl Havin. Over six minutes the collective explore the sonic what-if of Bitches Brew located in Paris instead of New York, possibly informed by French or Italian neo-realist new wavers.
It’s a hard act to follow, but they make good on the promise. Falling..., recorded in rural France and Brussels last summer, is the ensemble’s eighth outing, and they’re sounding crisp as a well-cut suit, but grimy underneath. It doesn’t hurt that Stuart Staples has fulfilled his long time ambition of duetting with the divine Ms Mary Margaret O’Hara. The result, ‘Peanuts’, is a beautifully batty slice of oddball doo-wop.
Elsewhere it’s business as usual, but business is good. Francophile la-la kitchen sink torch tunes like ‘Harmony Around My Table’. Bad-assed Ramblas rave-ups such as ‘She Rode Me Down’, set to a backdrop of flamenco handclaps, Andy Nice’s cello and Jo Fraser’s flute. Or ‘Keep You Beautiful’, one of those Tim Hardin-like songs of devotion that they do so well, with snazzy major-to-minor changes underscoring a world-worn vocal. Or groovy but ghostly mood pieces like ‘Hubbards Hills’. The apocalyptic ‘60s pop of ‘Black Smoke’. The chilling but majestic closer ‘Piano Music’. Sublime stuff, all of it.
File alongside Richard Hawley’s last masterpiece as a four-in-the-morning gitanes ‘n’ cognac special.
Key track: ‘Falling Down A Mountain’