Simple Pleasure
Of all the Tindersticks' albums (and be assured that each is singularly and equally wonderful),Simple Pleasuresis their most soulful and direct. On earlier outings, their songs were so packed with layered instrumentation, dark orchestration, and emotional density--on top of which Stuart Staples's brooding baritone (perhaps the most unique and lovely voice in all of music) rumbled--that you could barely breathe. But onSimple Pleasuresthe songs feel more open and airy, like someone has opened a door to let in the spring breeze. That's not to say that this enigmatic sextet has changed the makeup of their musical concoction much;Pleasuresstill features the beautiful scrim of piano, accordion, woodwinds, violin, cello, brushed drum, and the slip and slide of Staples's voice. And Staples knows that after spring comes fall, and it's the fallen that he's most interested in; his tone poems emote with both the betrayer and the betrayed. When Staples sings "You take this heart of mine," he means it in the worst possible way. And on the song "I Know That Loving," the love he knows is not a pleasant one. The beauty of the Tindersticks is that they acknowledge pain with lovely grace.--Tod Nelson