Måske de i 90’erne overhovedet ikke fik så meget spalteplads som de flashy engelske Britpop-bands, men det stod alligevel stjerneklart, at Tindersticks med deres særegent intime musik nok indeholdt en helt anden langtidsholdbarhed end de fleste af disse. At det også blev tilfældet er den nye retrospektive dbl-cd BBC Sessions bevis på. Som pladens titel fortæller, er der tale om en opsamling, udfra de éndags-sessions, Tindersticks ved adskillige lejligheder blev inviteret ind til, i BBC-studierne i Maida Vale, af især de to dj’s Mark Radcliffe og John Peel.
Heldigvis har bandets medlemmer i udvælgelsen til denne udgivelse valgt at fokusere på indspilninger fra tidsrummet 93-97, de gyldne Tindersticks-år. Her udsprang bandets første tre plader, der i materiale og dirrende nerve ligger over, hvad siden skulle komme. Det betyder genhør med titler og sange, vi allerede kender godt, men her får i ‘nye’ friske udgaver, der ofte på kvalitet, i session-situationens søgende her-og-nu-feeling, stikker af fra de mere velovervejede originaler. Store ord, men der er næsten også kun fremragende ting på disse to natkompatible cd’s. Stuart Staples har aldrig sunget nærmere, Tindersticks sjældent spillet tættere. Her indholdet af BBC Sessions:
DISC 1:
DRUNK TANK – JOHN PEEL SESSION 27/04/93
HER – JOHN PEEL SESSION 27/04/93
TYE-DIE – JOHN PEEL SESSION 27/04/93
RAINDROPS – JOHN PEEL SESSION 27/04/93
TINY TEARS – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 25/10/93
SNOWY IN F# MINOR – JOHN PEEL SESSION 18/01/94
SLEEPY SONG – JOHN PEEL SESSION 18/01/94
A NIGHT IN – JOHN PEEL SESSION 18/01/94
TALK TO ME – BBC EVENING SESSION 02/03/95
VERTRAUEN II – BBC EVENING SESSION 02/03/95
EL DIABLO EN EL OJO – BBC EVENING SESSION 02/03/95
SHE’S GONE – BBC EVENING SESSION 02/03/95
MY SISTER – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 08/03/95
DISC 2:
BEARSUIT – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 17/10/95
UNTITLED – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 17/10/95
CHERRY BLOSSOMS – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 17/10/9
SHE’S GONE – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 17/10/95
HERE – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 28/10/96
SEAWEED – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 28/10/96
DICK’S SLOW SONG – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 28/10/
RHUMBA – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 28/10/96
I WAS YOUR MAN – JOHN PEEL SESSION 18/01/94
HER – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION06/02/97
TRAVELLING LIGHT – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 06/02/
BURIED BONES – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 06/02/97
TINY TEARS – MARK RADCLIFFE SESSION 06/02/97
Jeg hørte deres andet album i ferien, og kom til at tænke på om My Sister ikke er det mest deprimerende (på den fede måde forstås) nummer der er lavet i rockhistorien – det gør virkelig ondt at høre den tekst.
My Sister
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 stared 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 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 recognized 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.
Tindersticks © 1995
BBC-Sessions er støt og roligt ved at spille sig ind som årets hidtil bedste udgivelse, det er simpelthen så forbandet godt det materiale, der er på.