Tindersticks released their first album in 1993, an audacious seventy-nine minute sprawling double album that paid little if no attention to the prevailing musical scene. Self-produced, it broke many supposed rules of how albums should be made. It was released to huge critical acclaim and established the band on a path of musical adventure that they are still feeling their way down today. Success for Tindersticks has never been about swimming in the mainstream of trend.

Original and distinctive then, Tindersticks craft songs that are rich and multi-layered both musically and lyrically. “Atmospheric”, “brooding”, “nicotine-stained”, “melancholic” give us some sense of the Tindersticks vibe but really you just have to listen to know what they sound like. As Pitchfork would have it, “the group filtered the dark romanticism of Leonard Cohen, Ian Curtis, and Scott Walker through the bizarre pop songcraft of Lee Hazlewood and the aesthetics of indie rock”.

Their work has scored TV and film from pivotal scenes on The Sopranos to whole scores for French art-house filmmaker Claire Denis.  In 2016 Tindersticks turned the music and film process on its head and handed 11 songs from The Waiting Room album to acclaimed filmmakers as the inspiration for short films, as Stuart Staples put it, “with the idea of creating visual spaces for the music of the album to inhabit – To commission films, not to try and describe the songs but to ‘hold’ them.”

Music Beyond Mainstream admires Tindersticks for their originality, restlessness experimenting and the possibility of creating immersive experiences with live music and cinematic scale projection.