Stuart Staples was already nurturing seeds for a different kind of Tindersticks album before lockdown halted their tour in early 2020, singer. If 2019’s 'No Treasure but Hope' saw the band rediscovering themselves as a unit, the follow-up reconfigures that unit so that everything familiar about Tindersticks sounds fresh again. 'Distractions' is an album of subtle realignments and connections from a restless, intuitive band: rich in texture and atmosphere, it lives between its open spaces and details, always finding new ways to connect with a song.
+ Indie LP is Dark Blue vinyl.
If it’s an album that resists easy summation, at least one thing is clear: though it isn’t untouched by the lockdown, 'Distractions' is not "a lockdown album". As Staples says, “I think the confinement provided an opportunity for something that was already happening. It is definitely a part of the album, but not a reaction to it.”

Music for the permanent exhibition at the In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres, Belgium.
In late 2011 tindersticks were commissioned by the In Flanders Fields World War One museum in Ypres, Belgium to provide the soundscape for the new permanent exhibition being planned to commemorate the centenary of the Great War and beyond.
Ypres was the epicenter of the Western Front in The Great War and was virtually destroyed by the conflict. It has since been rebuilt to its original plans, finished only relatively recently. The museum is housed in the rebuilt cloth hall that stands in the centre of the town and was once the hub of the towns industry.
Hundreds of thousands died in Ypres and the surrounding area. Allied cemeteries and graves are everywhere. It is overwhelming. Though in keeping with the perspective of the new museum a need to bring the essence of the experience to a personal level felt crucial. To somehow loosen it away from the images we have all become accustomed to.
A deep connection and inspiration for the work was found in the quiet, dignified German memorial garden of Vladslo and Kathe Kollwitz’ famous ‘Grieving parents’ statue that resides there.
The work is an evolving soundtrack to the vistors journey through the exhibition. Its aim was to become the sound of the air within the museum, never to be over bearing. This journey is punctuated by private comtemplative spaces where the score was allowed to become more poetic.
Given that buildings are known to be highly individual, the spaces within them resonating differently, it was felt that the building itself resonated to the key of F. The starting point for the music became a musical cluster of E flat, F and F sharp. Stuart Staples and Dan McKinna worked closely together to compose the work.
Recording the score, with its ever variable bar lengths and being void of vibrato was a tense day, presided over by long time collaborator, orchestra leader: Lucy Wilkins. The orchestral recordings were made at the Church in Crouch End, London and were then taken back to Le Chien Chanceux studio in France to prepare for the installation.
A beautiful bank holiday weekend in May 2012 was spent meticulously building the soundscape for every individual space, for each step through the museum.
This music was never created to be a stereo image as the various components were mixed together in the individual spaces of the exhibition. A second wave of studio work yielded this version.
The music in the museum itself loops seamlessly all day, everyday. It is music without a beginning , middle or end.

In January 2016 Tindersticks will release their new album The Waiting Room, a milestone not just numerically, but musically and creatively. Their first studio album since 2012 s critically acclaimed The Something Rain is the most ambitious, diverse and elaborate album you ll have heard from Tindersticks in recent years. 2 decades into their musical voyage these masters of restraint and poetic human emotion, are a band now confidently making the best songs of their career. The Waiting Room' breathes gravity and features guest appearances by Jehnny Beth of Savages and a particularly poignant duet with long time friend of Stuart Staples and Canadian legend, Lhasa De Sela. CD Gatefold w/16pg booklet

Three years since their last album proper, singer Stuart Staples decided Tindersticks' return called for something special and No Treasure but Hope, is very much that! Rich in intuitive warmth, lush melodies and an inquisitive spirit, it's an album that casts a fresh light on Tindersticks' core qualities, bathed in the glow of a band intent on rediscovering what they can do. Expanding the horizon without losing the focus, No Treasure but Hope manages to collect some of the band's most immediate work in one outsstanding album. This will be the bands twelfth record, the earliest Tindersticks release being in 1991. Over the course of the band's rich history, Staples has found a voice in film composition as well. This includes a soundtrack to Claire Denis' science-fiction film High Life (2019), which features vocals from actor Robert Pattinson.

2011 five CD box set that gathers all six of the Claire Denis soundtracks written and performed by Tindersticks or their members; Stuart A. Staples (for L'Intrus) and Dickon Hinchliffe (for Vendredi Soir), alongside four others credited to the full band. Four of the six soundtracks are previously unreleased, including the score for her most recent and hugely acclaimed White Material (which has also received Criterion treatment); all of the film scores recorded since 2002 are issued in this set for the first time. Comes in a slipcase box made from deluxe uncoated black paperboard with a custom die-cut window and metallic cover-print. Discs are housed in printed sleeves, each of which features an iconic image from the corresponding film that can interact with the window-cut box. Also included is a 48 page perfect-bound booklet of color film stills and an essay (in English and in French translation) by renowned music writer Michael Hill.

Tindersticks is the debut album by the chamber pop band Tindersticks, released in the UK on 11 October 1993 on This Way Up. Following positive reviews for their early singles and live performances, it was released to widespread critical acclaim by the music press, eventually being named album of the year by the UK music magazine Melody Maker.

Tindersticks are an English alternative rock band formed in Nottingham in 1991. They released six albums before singer Stuart A. Staples embarked on a solo career. The band reunited briefly in 2006 and more permanently the following year.

Tindersticks has been charting a glorious trajectory since returning to action in 2008 following a 5-year hiatus. With band leader Stuart A. Staples and co-founders David Boutler and Neil Fraser forming a core trio of original members, Tindersticks definitively returned to form with two critically-acclaimed albums of "wonderfully classy, coyly playful, coarse pop balladry" (according to Exclaim! magazine) in 2008 and 2010.
The band's new record, The Something Rain, makes this a trifecta.
As Staples asserts, Tindersticks has by this point truly become a band again, with the rhythm section of Dan McKinna (bass) and Earl Harvin (drums) now solidly in the fold and the group well-oiled from several years of touring in this configuration. The band's 2011 performances of its expansive body of film music penned for French art-house director Claire Denis (collected in a luxurious box set on Constellation) also brought a fresh sensibility to bear on the group.
The Something Rain brims and bristles with canny narrative thrust. Slinky, supple compositions are spiked with plenty of barbed edges and sparkling fizz. Right out of the gate, album opener "Chocolate" features David Boulter's sequel to the spoken-word classic "My Sister" from Tindersticks' 1995 eponymous release. Boulter narrates the story while the band works up a brilliant, brewing crescendo, abetted by the swirling horns of long-time collaborator Terry Edwards. This is indeed a new Tindersticks classic – edgier, more exuberant and more expansive – that spurs The Something Rain into a song cycle of rolling, at times rollicking, and always inimitably Tinderstickian takes on smoky Northern Soul.
Staples' home studio Le Chien Chanceux has figured prominently throughout the Tindersticks reunification period, but with The Something Rain, this space – and Staples' ongoing immersion in recording and mixing techniques – has fully emerged as ground zero for the band's sound. For the first time, Le Chien Chanceux studio serves as the location for the entirety of a Tindersticks album production, and Staples himself is solely credited with the recording and mixing. The album sounds terrific, and is a testament to Tindersticks' continuing reinvigoration – a dedication to charting its own course and shaping its own destiny further reinforced by the band issuing The Something Rain on its own Lucky Dog imprint for the UK, while partnering with Constellation and City Slang for North America and Europe respectively.
Thanks for listening.

Import exclusive soundtrack from the amazing London collective. Their second collaboration with French director Claire Denis (the first was in 1996 on 'Nenette et Boni'). The soundtrack was recorded in London last summer by the band with a host of other musicians. The film has French & UK release with a domestic scheduled for 2002. Limited edition vinyl also available. 2001.