Long acclaimed for their film soundtrack work, Tindersticks' latest project sees the band one again combine film with music. However, this time, rather than the band writing the score to a completed film, it's the movie makers who are responding to the Tindersticks' music.
"I think it was something we’d felt like doing for a long time," explains keyboard player David Boulter.
Early in their career the band never felt wholly comfortable with making videos designed specifically for the glossy MTV market, wishing instead they could create something more unique, that truly reflected Tindersticks’ raison d’être.
"That idea had grown," Boulter says, of the notion which has culminated in The Waiting Room - an 11 track album accompanied by 11 short films, and the accompanying ‘Cine-Concert’, a live multi-media performance with the band and the movies.
Despite its roots in the band’s major label stint, a decade ago, The Waiting Room project only started in earnest when, in 2012, singer Stuart Staples received an invitation.
"It really all began with Stuart who was asked to judge a short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand, in France, and he saw films by some of the directors we approached. That gave us a way in," says Boulter, who co-founded the band in the early '90s.
"It’s great to have a visual album, it has a different life, it’s not part of the usual cycle of recording an album, releasing it, touring it, we can use it in different media," he continues, adding that scheduling was another factor. "We could do it this time because we’d finished the album so far in advance – we finished the album a year ago, so we had time to make these films."
Among those invited to create short pieces for The Waiting Room project were artists Rosie Pedlow and Joe King, Christoph Girardet, Pierre Vinour, Gregorio Graziosi, photographer Richard Dumas and Gabriel Sanna. Also on board was director Claire Denis, who effectively kick-started the band's film soundtrack work in 1996, working with them on a run of films including White Material, Trouble Every Day and Vendredi Soir.
The resulting shorts, which also include contributions from Staples, span the seemingly every day (a sped-up car journey and images of the exterior of amusement arcades), to the strange yet beautiful (a day in the life of a donkey-man, filmed by famed portrait photographer Dumas).
"We didn’t want narrative films. The films are purely their take ... we said what we liked and let them get on with it," Boulter explains.
The completed shorts form the first half of the Tindersticks' live/ film Waiting Room Cine-Concert programme, with a 'best of' set-list forming the second half.
"When playing we’ve been in front of the film and it gives you a different perspective," enthuses Boulter who was particularly stuck by the work of Brazilian filmmakers Gabraz Sanna and Sara Nao Tem Nome, which features a gigantic truck and bleak quarry landscape. "We Are Dreamers impressed me – though I don’t know what it all means – and I liked Planting Holes. It has this Ferris Wheel, this big wheel, I really like, it has something that connected with the music."
Tindersticks play Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday 30 April. Tickets HERE
Long acclaimed for their film soundtrack work, Tindersticks' latest project sees the band one again combine film with music. However, this time, rather than the band writing the score to a completed film, it's the movie makers who are responding to the Tindersticks' music.
"I think it was something we’d felt like doing for a long time," explains keyboard player David Boulter.
Early in their career the band never felt wholly comfortable with making videos designed specifically for the glossy MTV market, wishing instead they could create something more unique, that truly reflected Tindersticks’ raison d’être.
"That idea had grown," Boulter says, of the notion which has culminated in The Waiting Room - an 11 track album accompanied by 11 short films, and the accompanying ‘Cine-Concert’, a live multi-media performance with the band and the movies.
Despite its roots in the band’s major label stint, a decade ago, The Waiting Room project only started in earnest when, in 2012, singer Stuart Staples received an invitation.
"It really all began with Stuart who was asked to judge a short film festival in Clermont-Ferrand, in France, and he saw films by some of the directors we approached. That gave us a way in," says Boulter, who co-founded the band in the early '90s.
"It’s great to have a visual album, it has a different life, it’s not part of the usual cycle of recording an album, releasing it, touring it, we can use it in different media," he continues, adding that scheduling was another factor. "We could do it this time because we’d finished the album so far in advance – we finished the album a year ago, so we had time to make these films."
Among those invited to create short pieces for The Waiting Room project were artists Rosie Pedlow and Joe King, Christoph Girardet, Pierre Vinour, Gregorio Graziosi, photographer Richard Dumas and Gabriel Sanna. Also on board was director Claire Denis, who effectively kick-started the band's film soundtrack work in 1996, working with them on a run of films including White Material, Trouble Every Day and Vendredi Soir.
The resulting shorts, which also include contributions from Staples, span the seemingly every day (a sped-up car journey and images of the exterior of amusement arcades), to the strange yet beautiful (a day in the life of a donkey-man, filmed by famed portrait photographer Dumas).
"We didn’t want narrative films. The films are purely their take ... we said what we liked and let them get on with it," Boulter explains.
The completed shorts form the first half of the Tindersticks' live/ film Waiting Room Cine-Concert programme, with a 'best of' set-list forming the second half.
"When playing we’ve been in front of the film and it gives you a different perspective," enthuses Boulter who was particularly stuck by the work of Brazilian filmmakers Gabraz Sanna and Sara Nao Tem Nome, which features a gigantic truck and bleak quarry landscape. "We Are Dreamers impressed me – though I don’t know what it all means – and I liked Planting Holes. It has this Ferris Wheel, this big wheel, I really like, it has something that connected with the music."
Tindersticks play Warwick Arts Centre on Saturday 30 April. Tickets HERE