La bella tristeza de Tindersticks

Al comunicarle a un amigo acerca de la existencia de este humilde blog, él me hizo una sugerencia acerca de uno de los grupos más auténticos y elegantes que surgieron en la escena británica de los 90`s: Tindersticks (¡gracias Alex por recordármelos y por el apoyo!). Al mismo tiempo me comunicó la noticia de su reciente disolución, cosa que lamento mucho de ser así, sobre todo por la magia y delicadeza de su particular sonido.

Tindersticks sin duda llegó desde Nottingham, por allá en 1991, para convertirse en uno de los más grandes exponentes del “pop adulto” que había sido demarcado por otros genios como Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen y Nick Cave. Le dio frescura a un movimiento de cantautores (pese a que ellos eran un grupo y no solistas) que buscaba transmitir sentimientos típicamente “oscuros” como la angustia, el abandono y la desesperación pero otorgándoles a la vez una importante cuota de aliento para salir adelante y sobreponerse a dichos estados anímicos. Al mismo tiempo, supieron darle a su sonoridad un toque de clasicismo por medio de una única mezcla de música de cámara acompañada de folk, rock tradicional y jazz, además del sello proporcionado por la inconfundible voz grave y trasnochada de su líder Stuart Staples.

Esta agrupación supo también mantenerse alejada pero a la vez lo suficientemente alineada con el ambiente indie inglés y el brit-pop, atrayendo la atención de los seguidores de uno y otro, lo cual logró no sólo con su música sino también con las introspectivas, obsesivas y hasta irónicas letras aportadas por Staples, sobre todo en sus primeros discos. Uno de aquellos es “The Second Tindersticks” (también conocido como “II”), editado en 1994; una obra maestra con pasajes orquestados brillantes que hacen recordar a ratos las baladas de grandes del vocal jazz como Tonny Bennett, Nat King Cole y Frank Sinatra, junto con la belleza murmurante y reposada del sonido que ha sido característico de esta banda europea.

Lo que les comparto hoy pertenece justamente a este álbum, a mi gusto uno de los más completos que he escuchado de Tindersticks (junto con el anterior, “I”, que siendo su trabajo debut fue declarado como disco del año por la prestigiosa revista Melody Maker). El tema seleccionado se titula “My Sister”, que posee una extraordinaria musicalización. En él colaboran Isabel Monteiro del grupo Drugstore con su susurrante voz, y Terry Edwards en los bronces; la agrupación la completan Al Macauley en batería, Dickon Hichcliffe en violín y guitarra, Dave Boulter en teclados, Neil Fraser en guitarra y, por supuesto, Stuart Staples en voz. Un dato adicional: en este álbum también colabora en la pieza central “Travelling Light” Carla Torgueson, vocalista del grupo estadounidense The Walkabouts, en un precioso dúo con Staples.

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My Sister

(Tindersticks)

Do you remember my sister? How many mistakes did she make with those never blinking eyes? I couldn't work it out. I swear she could read your mind, your life, the depths of your soul at one glance. Maybe she was stripping herself away, saying

Here I am, this is me

I am yours and everything about me, everything you see...

If only you look hard enough

I never could.

Our life was a pillow-fight. We'd stand there on the quilt, our hands clenched ready. Her with her milky teeth, so late for her age, and a Stanley knife in her hand. She sliced the tyres on my bike and I couldn't forgive her.

She went blind at the age of five. We'd stand at the bedroom window and she'd get me to tell her what I saw. I'd describe the houses opposite, the little patch of grass next to the path, the gate with its rotten hinges forever wedged open that Dad was always going to fix. She'd stand there quiet for a moment. I thought she was trying to develop the images in her own head. Then she'd say:

I can see little twinkly stars,

like Christmas tree lights in faraway windows.

Rings of brightly coloured rocks

floating around orange and mustard planets.

I can see huge tiger striped fishes

chasing tiny blue and yellow dashes,

all tails and fins and bubbles.

I'd look at the grey house opposite, and close the curtains.

She burned down the house when she was ten. I was away camping with the scouts. The fireman said she'd been smoking in bed - the old story, I thought. The cat and our mum died in the flames, so Dad took us to stay with our Aunt in the country. He went back to London to find us a new house. We never saw him again.

On her thirteenth birthday she fell down the well in our Aunt's garden and broke her head. She'd been drinking heavily. On her recovery her sight returned, a fluke of nature everyone said. That's when she said she'd never blink again. I would tell her when she started at me, with her eyes wide and watery, that they reminded me of the well she fell into. She liked this, it made her laugh.

She moved in with a gym teacher when she was fifteen, all muscles he was. He lost his job when it all came out, and couldn't get another one. Not in that kind of small town. Everybody knew everyone else's business. My sister would hold her head high, though. She said she was in love. They were together for five years until one day he lost his temper. He hit her over the back of the neck with his bullworker. She lost the use of the right side of her body. He got three years and was out in fifteen months. We saw him a while later, he was coaching a non-league football team in a Cornwall seaside town. I don't think he recognised her. My sister had put on a lot of weight from being in a chair all the time. She'd get me to stick pins and stub out cigarettes in her right hand. She'd laugh like mad because it didn't hurt. Her left hand was pretty good though. We'd have arm wrestling matches, I'd have to use both arms and she'd still beat me.

We buried her when she was 32. Me and my Aunt, the vicar, and the man who dug the hole. She said she didn't want to be cremated and wanted a cheap coffin so the worms could get to her quickly. She said she liked the idea of it, though I thought it was because of what happened to the cat and our mum

Como siempre les dejo el sitio web oficial del grupo.