Tindersticks

I posted this somewhere else, but now I want to post it here. Sorry if you know both. That's what you get for reading my Gemini brain leaks. But you probably won't know this image. Keep it like a secret.

I have run out of room on my 20 gig music player.

It's somewhere over 3000 songs. I have maybe one or two playlists. i don't make the effort. I usually listen to full albums 'as the artist intended'. I rarely have a single song from a single artist just floating around. The time came last night when the decisions on what to leave on there became muddy. Normally I can look at an artist or album and know that not only have I not listened to them for a month at least, but I wouldn't mind bumping them for something new that I need to really get into for a few days. I have trimmed down to what I really like lately, but I upped the bitrate on my mp3's lately so that didn't help. What can I say? I'm an audiosuperfreak. I like quality and quantity.

I examined my options:
A-C is pretty solid. There's no way I'm going to push Curtis Mayfield off just because I haven't listened to it in a month. Damian Marley may have to take a vacation. I'm down to two Deftones scream-albums and Deux Process isn't amazing, but they're local so I would feel like a traitor. D-I looks good otherwise, but that Hezekiah CD hasn't been touched in a while. Hmm. hip hop is starting to lose some space I think. J-N is fine even though I refuse to boot Nina Simone or Muddy Waters. oh wait, there's Oddjob. Not a bad disk, but not fantastic either. I think it's all instrumental orchesta. They might have to go or that other one I put on at the same time, Tindersticks. Of Montreal should probably stay for now, but it's on the bubble. So let's choose then between Oddjob and Tindersticks.

I have one Tindersticks CD from 2003. I have one Oddjob CD from the same year. Yesterday I had a TS song in my head even though I was listening to Leonard Cohen, which was kind of painful I have to say. I thought it would be good for broadening my horizons and maybe I'm just not ready for it. The song he put on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack is still brilliant though.

Everytime I listen to this TS disk I think about how melodic it is, with it's electronic synthy quirks and demonstrative strings and I think, wow, this is really good. The voice is pretty decent and nonstandard so I'm cool with that and these musical arrangements are beautifully complex. Lyrics are solid, passionate, if not a little simple. Not everything has to scream political or positivity for me, but I like there to be something with more substance than most top 40.

There's poetry here. From music to delivery to lyrical prowess, it's just very good and actually pretty sexy. Think rainy day bookstore. Think fresh cup of chai where they make sure to steam the milk up for you. Think overly-warm lighting that coaxes you to imagine putting your hands against the spine of that beautifully-spectacled and tatto'd girl on the corner couch rather than some dog-eared copy of 'On the Road'. You'd fit perfectly between those shelves at the back of the store, near the window where the old radiator hasn't worked in years.

If you feel what I feel.