Tindersticks Tickets at 3Olympia Theatre

With the rich orchestrations of multi-instrumentalist Dickon Hinchliffe and the rich vocals of Stuart A. Staples, Tindersticks’ sound is characterized by a synthesis of orchestral backing, lounge jazz, and soul. Five years after 'No Treasure but Hope' (2019) and three years after 2021’s 'Distractions', Tindersticks return with new album ‘Soft Tissue’ to be released on City Slang in October 2024.

A tangible sense of mutual curiosity propels the five members of Tindersticks to fresh territory on 'Soft Tissue', their 14th album proper. Previously, on 'No Treasure but Hope' (2019), these mavens of mood and beauty had embraced a kind of dusky, live-sounding naturalism, followed by the bracingly executed experimental left-turns of 2021’s 'Distractions'.

With the vocals, strings and brass completed in London, the result upholds Tindersticks’ extraordinarily sustained commitment to ambition and exploration, stretching back more than three decades. If the symphonic ruminations of Tindersticks’ trio of 1993-7 albums established them as trend-averse explorers of great depth and reach, 'Simple Pleasure' (1999) and 'Can Our Love…' (2001) proved equally adept at exploring contrasting textures within tighter contexts. After 2003’s twinkling 'Waiting for the Moon', and an emotional live performance of their second album in 2006, the band said farewell to three old bandmates, leaving Staples, Fraser and Boulter to start again. McKinna (multi-instrumentalist) and Thomas Belhom (drums) joined for the warming rebirth of 'The Hungry Saw' (2008), before Harvin took over on drums for the increasingly confident 'Falling Down a Mountain' (2010) and the palpably freeing 'The Something Rain' (2012).

Later work equipped Tindersticks’ inquisitive impetus with fertile focus. Between compositions for the First World War commemorations (Ypres, 2014) and F Percy Smith’s microscopic movies (Minute Bodies, 2017), 2016’s The Waiting Room crackled with global sounds. Staples then delivered a solo album (Arrhythmia, 2018) and the soundtrack to director Claire Denis’s science-fiction film High Life, strengthening the band’s long-term ties to the filmmaker – soundtracks to Denis’s Stars at Noon and Both Sides of the Blade have since followed. 'No Treasure but Hope' and 'Distractions' affirmed the band’s readiness to stretch themselves, to live and breathe inside their music. More recently, two 2023 France shows devoted to their hugely varied 10-film work with Denis upheld the band’s adaptable determination to actively pursue ever-bigger challenges.