Tindersticks - Man Alone (Can’t Stop The Fadin’)
- NICK DUTFIELD
- Jan 28, 2021
- 3 min read
If you’re travelling London alone by taxi at night, does lockdown make a difference? Inside the cab everything is the same, but outside the windows there’s a world of differences, seen, unseen, imagined or not. The new Tindersticks track, Man Alone, comes with a video of night time taxi footage that reinforces its claustrophobic elements. Elements that repeat, that blossom, that withdraw, that re-emerge, that do anything but fade. Is this perverse? For claustrophobia to expand like that? For a track called Can’t Stop Fadin’ to refuse to fade? God, yes, like a world of infinitely connected social bubbles is perverse. Man Alone is a perverse and haunting experience.
Lockdown has made its mark on the band, prompting periods of writing at a distance and recording in a race against pandemic deadlines. Hence, the orchestral extravagances of past releases have all gone. Lushness too, with keyboard, bass, drums and vocals taking the strain. Not that minimalism is the result, Man Alone is eleven minutes long and it passes through stages where great surges of noise press forward, relent, and press again, car horn noise barely noticeable against the boom. The Can’t Stop The Fadin’ refrain comes and goes, as if it were in orbit, it’s sincerity conflicted against the track’s reluctance to end. Maybe the fadin’ is observed rather than experienced. ‘The song was always a journey but I wasn’t expecting it to be such a long one,’ Stuart Staples says on the Tindersticks website. ‘We made a 6 minute version but it felt like it pulled off and stopped half way to its destination.’ The site also reveals that the song existed at the beginning of 2020 so the temptation to tease Covid references from the Man Alone vibes (see above), is misguided – a reminder that isolation and unsated greeds have always been around. ‘Falling into the city, falling into this life,’ go the lyrics, a with those greeds lurking around. Actually, maybe it’s lie, not life.
Radio producers might be put off by the length and rather wait for an edit, but Spanish Radio Tres has taken the toro by the cuernos, and they just put it on and then take it off at a handy moment. Why not? The band couldn’t fade out, but it doesn’t mean we’re not allowed to. With its full epic, spectral appeal it’s a track that reminds me of Pulp’s plunge into unleavened sleaze, This Is Hardcore, or Bark Psychosis’ Scum, a tune that combined melodic sections with brain attack cacophony, apparently in pursuit of inescapable truths, while stumbling into unlistenable masterpiece territory.
Finally, one last word of encouragement. This may all sound bleak, or difficult, but don’t be put off. We are in the hands of masters here, which is clear by the way they draw you in. The opening is as good as you will find, bass, drums, and a lilting vocal set the scene. You will be hooked. After 6 minutes you may feel like a carp, thrashing around on the riverbank, but that´s half the fun.
THIS WEEK
Tindersticks – Man Alone (Can´t Stop The Fadin´)
16, 582 views since 16th Jan Weekly Average Views – 11,607
LAST WEEK
SOPHIE – BIPP (Autechre Mix)
Weekly Average Views – 15, 039 Blog Week Views – 6,954
EXTRAS – Refreshing blasts of three minute rockish amuse bouche
Dry Cleaning – Scratchcard Lanyard (this is absolutely brilliant, as is the video)
Yard Act – Dark Days
Royal Blood – Typhoons
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