THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Tindersticks’ 14th album Soft Tissue showcases their exploratory spirit, mixing intimate songwriting with experimental soundscapes. The album evolves from their previous work, balancing introspective lyrics with innovative musical textures.
The bandmembers, including singer Stuart Staples, emphasize the collaborative nature of the creation process, fostering a dynamic dialogue that shapes their music. Key tracks like New World and Always A Stranger highlight this blend of personal reflection and sonic exploration, underscoring the band’s enduring ambition and versatility.
Stuart says this about the album: “ ‘Baby I was falling, but the shit that I was falling through / Thought it was just the world rising.’ These are the opening lines of New World and the album, it seems all the songs on Soft Tissue inhabit this confusion somehow — despairing at the destruction, suspecting you are responsible…
“Musically, it seemed that since 2016’s The Waiting Room, the band’s output had been reactionary. The last two Tindersticks have been so opposed to each other — 2019’s No Treasure But Hope was an extremely naturalistic recording process — due in part as a reaction to the previous few years of experimental projects and in turn as a reaction to this purity 2021’s Distractions became one of the band’s most dense, experimental albums. It felt like time to stop lurching to these extremes and to find a way to marry the rigour of the songwriting and the joy of the band playing together with a more hard-nosed experimental approach.”
The album is also blessed with the involvement of Stuart’s artist daughter Sidonie, who as well as creating the pieces in felt for the sleeve also made the ceramic pieces and landscapes for the film for New World. “Sid was making these tiny ceramic characters, I asked her to make some of the band members. Later I wrote this song New World about somehow trying make sense of this strange world I felt developing around me and these little guys came back into my mind. Let’s take them on a stop-motion journey across a strange land, from the barren rocks to the bountiful fruit that is not familiar and maybe poisonous (the Durian fruit smelled pretty bad, they are not allowed on busses in some parts of the world!). Sid put the landscapes together and moved the figures, millimetres at a time. Neil took the photographs, we edited as went along.”
