The whims of the music industry change but Tindersticks remain eternal. The five-piece, fronted by the mercurial Stuart A Staples, have sat on the margins of the music industry since their formation in 1991, managing that rarest of things; a consistent sound that’s developed across decades in slow and satisfying iterations. 

There’s a looming quality to their work, anxious without ever descending into nerve-shredding terror, crepuscular while unafraid to let in streams of light and shades of jet-black darkness, and ghostly without ever lacking vitality. Yet perhaps the most distinctive element of their gothic lounge-jazz style (think Tom Waits on laudanum and you’re halfway there) lies with Staples’ plaintive baritone, a growling groan which can move from romantic to detached with the mildest shift of intonations. 

Now the veterans of gloom are returning with Soft Tissue, their 14th album and their first since the pandemic. ‘When you don’t have a definite purpose to make something, great things can happen,’ Staples told us. ‘We didn’t set out to make an album. With everything that’s gone on over the last few years (the pandemic, having tours cancelled), we didn’t really have any time to be together and play music, especially because we all live in different countries now. So, we checked into a rehearsal room to cook and play music and drink some wine, and we came away with some things we were excited about. It created a sweet spot of understanding between the five of us and the way we play music together.’

The political and social turmoil of the past few years may act as a backdrop but, as with almost every Tindersticks project, Staples’ lyrics are allusive meditations on deeply personal situations. Lead single ‘Nancy’ sounds like a rhumba in purgatory while Staples plays the role of a lover spurned (‘Your silence is worse than what you might say’). ‘The song is a very universal subject. It’s almost as if anyone could insert their own time and place. I’ve never wanted lyrics printed on album covers. There’s a price to be paid for that.’

Part of the reason the band have stayed fresh lies in the decision they’ve made, both consciously and unconsciously, to never lean on modish production styles. ‘In the early 90s, drum machines had been harnessed and I think that was detrimental to a lot of music. When we made our first album, one of the first things we wanted to do was not pin it down into a moment in time, so that it didn’t sound like an album from 1992. That’s what we tried to do with Soft Tissue; it’s got a sound all of its own, one that’s come out of experimentation and refining that experimentation until we found what we were looking for.’ It’s why the band sound so tangible and lived in. ‘I’d love to add to the physicality of music. It was one of the things I wanted, to lean into the idea that we were making a record with our bodies not staring at computer screens.’ 

A group of multi-instrumentalists embedded in artistry without visible commercial desire almost feels like an artefact from another era. ‘I've had the privilege to spend the last 30 years waking up in the morning, thinking about the ideas that are in my head and spending time exploring them. Everyone knows that it’s a labour of love to make music if you’re young now. Otherwise, how are you going to pay your rent?’ In the ethereal world of Tindersticks, let’s be glad they’re able to shrug off such material concerns in their grand, cinematic music. 

Soft Tissue is released by City Slang on Friday 13 September.