Tindersticks: Can Our Love...

We listened to this in car last Saturday on the way to young Stanley's christening. As we headed out round the South Circular and People Keep Comin' Round sashayed over the stereo, Lucy said she couldn't work out the common thread in my taste. Occasionally a sharp and witty response to a challenge like this will force its way out of my mouth before I've had time to think, but this was the more common occurrence: I didn't reply at all, but instead cogitated on the issue for the next 15 minutes.

We all have certain musical tropes that appeal: you know I'm a sucker for inter alia the riff at the start of Deep Purple's Burn, for Liz Fraser's singing on Lorelei, the rhythm section of 1982 Simple Minds, and the fade on Galaxie 500's Fourth of July. But you can't weave those strands into a coherent thread of taste.

I try as far as possible to meet music on its own terms or its own territory. And I know that sounds pompous. But I would find it boring if I just explored music that I expected to appeal to me immediately. Wouldn't you? Better to try something leftfield and unpredictable that challenges exactly the kind of taste-habits that can become restrictive. And isn't that what culture's for, to try out what it feels like in someone else's shoes? A rehearsal for empathy, as I think Brian Eno once said.

Sometimes I fail in my attempt to acclimatise, yesterday being one example. And I'm old enough to know that there are some kinds of music that I'll never adapt to (most of what passes for R&B these days, he said like a grumpy middle-aged white man). The only times I get annoyed with music are when I think I'm on common ground with it but it just doesn't move me. XTC for example. Or maybe Elvis Costello (though there's something about his voice that is repels me in the same way as all those tropes I mentioned attract me).

Now, where were we? Can Our Love&hellip (note: ellipsis, but no question mark, hmmm…?) Getting inside the place where Tindersticks' music comes from was neither immediate nor was it one of those challenges where you struggle and struggle for years without seeming to get anywhere before the scales drop from your ears and all becomes clear. I liked them a bit to start with — probably more the idea of them than the music itself — and it was a steady, slow journey to liking them a lot. And it was only five weeks ago that their fantastic show at the Royal Festival Hall really clinched it for me.

I got Can Our Love&hellip after the other three Tindersticks albums that I've mentioned before, and immediately noticed the more soulful feel — I mean soulful like Isaac Hayes (which I get) rather than soulful like Otis Redding (which I only half get). Longer songs, too — so you can wallow in the melancholy.

I just downloaded the new Tindersticks album, The Hungry Saw via emusic.com, so that's another little trip to look forward to.

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