Despite their best intentions of remaining a fringe act, Tindersticks have, over the course of almost 10 years, built up a sizeable cult following. This perhaps says as much about the dogged perseverance of the Nottingham group as it does about their fans' need to be plunged into the depths of a foggy despair, embracing the abyss, unwilling to return to the mundane reality of catching the last bus home.
The main constituents of Tindersticks include the voice of Stuart Staples, the violin playing of Dickon Hinchcliffe and the keyboard figures of Dave Boulter; Staples's singing is an acquired-taste intonation of poetic, Gothic romanticism, not unlike that of a mellow Ian Curtis or a slow-motion Nick Cave. Hinchcliffe, an Emily Brontδ soundalike, both propels and underpins the songs, while Boulter runs rings around and between the songs, enhancing an already sombre - if glorious - mood.
By themselves, Tindersticks provide enough dark-chocolate moments to keep anyone going, but in this special orchestral evening, for the theatre festival, the addition of a 17-piece string section piled on the pleasure. Sepulchral in tone throughout, the band took time to develop their usual mixture of early-morning disenchantment and gloom-laden musings.
With little deviation from the Tindersticks blueprint, this was music you loved with a quiet, intense passion or felt distanced from by its anti-celebratory nature. What became apparent very quickly, however, was the beguiling interplay between the band's fundamental sound and the luxurious, contained rush of the orchestra; what began tentatively ended in a pulsing, mesmerising blend of styles.
With virtually no communication other than the music, and with a stage presence that involves little beyond a basic at-ease stance, Tindersticks manage what many other bands cannot: they balance beauty with force and morbidity with elegance.
