Tindersticks are a band whose music is defined by a mood as much as a style, and if anyone is looking for proof to that theory, 2021's
Distractions will do nicely. The lush, expansively orchestrated sound of 2019's
No Treasure but Hope was a stellar example of prime
Tindersticks, a sprawling canvas composed from an infinity of small details.
Distractions, on the other hand, is nearly as powerful while sounding atypically spare, created from what for this group is the bare minimum of elements but still achieving the cool, majestic tone of their most famous work.
Tindersticks leader
Stuart Staples has said
Distractions isn't a lockdown album, but that the isolation imposed on its production by the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 reinforced a creative choice that was already in place, and this music clearly took creative advantage of the limits that outside circumstances imposed on the musicians. While a string quartet appears on two tracks, much of
Distractions was crafted from simple guitar and keyboard figures, drum machines, and loops, with a vocal sample of
Staples providing the framework of the opening track, "Man Alone (Can't Stop the Fadin')." The gentle strength of
Staples' deep, whispery vocals takes up even more space than usual on these sessions, and on many tracks, it has little more than elemental guitar and keyboard lines to accompany it. As it happens, that's enough. The mournful, searching tone of the melodies is well served by the stripped-down arrangements and no-frills production, and if
Staples and his cohorts were striving to set a dark night of the soul to music, they could scarcely have done better than this. Three of the seven tracks are covers, and though
Staples and bandmate
Dan McKinna didn't write them,
Neil Young's "A Man Needs a Maid,"
Dory Previn's "Lady with the Braid," and
Television Personalities' "You'll Have to Scream Louder" fit this album perfectly, ideal for this deep contemplation of the void.
Distractions isn't an album filled with hope, but the search for the comfort and grace it brings is never far from center stage and brings its own sort of warmth to the mix. It's a powerful, evocative work that speaks to the time that created it as well as the continued creative growth of a unique and gifted group of artists. ~ Mark Deming