This is the only 'signed' CD I own. Don't laugh.
The album includes a strings section two dozen strong. Including a chap I worked with at the time this was recorded and released. He was a freelancer, subbing from time to time with professional orchestras and doing session work. Not enough to earn a living but getting paid for his hobby. So having missed him on Later with Jools Holland, I bought the album, and, to his acute embarassment, I asked him to sign it..!
I don't play it very often, and I don't really understand why. I suspect that Tindersticks are an acquired taste, but it didn't take me long to acquire the taste. Yet, I have never bought any other of their albums.
There used to be a dreadful phrase 'Adult Oriented Rock'. I hated the phrase and I hated the genre, and it seems to have died a death. However, there are certain types of rock music which will be lost on the average teeny bopper, requiring a certain amount of maturity to fully appreciate them. And I would thus describe Tindersticks.
Despite my erstwhile slight connection with this band, I really don't know anything about them, and the CD liner isn't exactly informative. Googling reveals that they've been recording since the early 90s and haven't split up, although they've been working on 'side projects'. They have quite a long discography that seems to include six studio albums.
There is very little information about them on the web, really. And it's quite difficult to describe their music. If you want safe and bland don't listen to the Tindersticks. Yet, in its melodic mellowness it can hardly be described as brash and inyerface. It is predominantly acoustic, on the whole tuneful or deliberately atonal. They don't so much have a lead singer as a lead recitalist. This guy does not sing. Yet it is more than talking. He has a voice rich with overtones. Haunting. As I say, I am surprised that I haven't played it more often and am not more familiar with it.
Standout tracks include 'Ballad of Tindersticks' and 'Let's Pretend' but I emphasise that this is not a Singles Album. I actually don't think it's even one that ought to be played on 'random' or 'shuffle'. It has to be taken as a whole, and one has to savour the contrasts in soundworlds.
