Rebirth of a ladies' man

If ever a title were apposite. Ex Tindersticks mainman Stuart A. Staples’ second solo album rejoices – if that’s the word – under the handle Leaving Songs, and the overall feeling of the collection, recorded in Nashville with the help of Lambchop maestro Mark Nevers, is one of emotion recollected in tranquility.

Or rather, emotion recollected on tranquillisers. It’s a gorgeous sounding record, but one that carries a lot of baggage, mostly under the eyes (as on the wonderfully named ‘Dance With An Old Man’) – not so much nostalgia as a sort of retrospective weight.
“Yeah, I don’t think there’s any nostalgia on it,” Staples says. “I hope not, I had enough of that a couple of years ago. It was written very quickly in a short period, a burst of writing like I hadn’t had in a long time, to do with words. I came back after two weeks with all the backing tracks recorded and all the singing, but it really confused me, I had to find the arrangements to suit them.”
And what grand arrangements they are. Nevertheless, that grandeur can’t mask the substance of the songs, many of which suggest a man pondering the residue of doomed affairs, emptying out his attic and sifting through old heirlooms, deciding what to keep and what to discard.
“I think leaving is kind of like that,” Stuart says, “figuring out what’s important.”
Nowhere is this more marked than the opening tune ‘Goodbye To Old Friends’, a lavishly orchestrated piece that reconciles an urgent tempo with a downbeat sentiment against a near baroque pop arrangement worthy of Jimmy Webb or Scott Walker. On first listen it sounds like a tearful farewell directed at old running buddies, old loves, the streets of old towns. Except the reality is rather more prosaic.
“When I started writing that, I think it was about smoking,” Stuart chuckles. “I stopped smoking back a year ago for a while. When you’ve done something like that for 20 years it kind of defines you.”
So did he manage to stay off the demon weed?
“No, I just got complacent, thinking, ‘I can deal with this’. I was six months off them at the time.”
Old habits die hard. Leaving Songs also features the latest in the long line of duets Staples has recorded (and it must be said, the man has exquisite taste in dancing partners, having previously worked with Isabella Rossellini and Carla Torgerson from The Walkabouts). This time out he shares a mic with Lhasa de Sela on ‘That Leaving Feeling’ and Maria McKee on ‘The Road Is Long’. The results are sublime, although the latter song gave Staples no end of grief, a suitable co-vocalist having eluded him for ages.
“It started to become kind of a problem really,” he says, “then I walked into a record shop and the first thing I saw was her face on a CD, and it made complete sense – all the years I’d been listening to her, everything clicked into place. Overall I think women’s voices have always played a big part in my songs. Gina (Foster)’s backing vocals played a big part on this record, to the point where I hear Gina singing when I’m writing.”
Indeed, on tunes like ‘There Is A Path’ and ‘One More Time’ the contrast between Ms Foster’s honeyed tones and Stuart’s addictively morose delivery, somewhere between croon and groan, recalls such classic pairings as Lee and Nancy or Leonard and Julie Christensen.
“I suppose what I do has never been driven by singing,” Stuart admits, “it’s been driven by ideas that I try to get across to people. And it’s as much to do with what you leave out. You try and capture them and hope that feeling translates.”