tindersticks11

Tindersticks, The Antlers, Paper, The Week That Was, Your Nature (formerly Frankpollis) & more in This Week in Indie

by Bill Pearis

DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks – “The Hungry Saw” (MP3)
DOWNLOAD
: Tindersticks – “Yesterday’s Tomorrow” (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Tindersticks – “The Other Side of the World” (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: Paper – “Out of It Into It” (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Week That Was – “Learn to Learn” (MP3)
DONWLOAD: The Antlers – “Bear” (MP3)
DOWNLOAD: The Antlers – “Two” (MP3)

Tindersticks
Tindersticks

The most exciting show of the week for me has to be the return of Tindersticks, who play the Brooklyn Masonic Temple on Friday (3/6). The band rarely tour the States, having last been here five years ago for their album Waiting for the Moon. In the interim, frontman Stuart Staples put out a solo album in 2005, fueling break-up rumors. It was more like break in half: the band lost three members, leaving Tindersticks as a trio comprised of Staples, guitarist Neil Fraser and percussionist/keyboardist David Boutler.

The three have been busy lately. Not only did they put out last year’s very good The Hungry Saw, but just finished soundtrack work for Claire Denis’ new film 35 rhums. (Tindersticks previously worked on Denis’ 2001 film Trouble Every Day.) Despite the shrinking membership, Tindersticks sound just as dark, lush and cinematic as before on The Hungry Saw. Like Nick Cave, Tindersticks’ seem to get better with age. For these North American shows, Tindersticks will be touring as a seven-piece, including the amazing-in-his-own-right Terry Edwards on brass.

Tickets for the Brooklyn Masonic Temple show are still available,. Longtime BV fave Dawn Landes opens. Meanwhile, Tindersticks singer Stuart Staples is featured in this week’s Pitchfork Guestlist.

The Week That Was
The Week That Was

South by Southwest is only two weeks away, which means UK, European, and Canadian bands on their way there will start playing NYC shows soon. Next week is kind of insane, so in an effort to cover some of it early, I’ll remind you again that The Week That Was play Mercury Lounge this Monday, March 9. Here’s what I wrote a while back:

TWTW are one of the two splinter groups created when Sunderland, UK’s Field Music decided to retire that moniker but still basically make music together. David Brewis released a phonetics-obsessed solo project under the name School of Language(which toured here last March). His brother Peter created The Week That Was, a concept album equally obsessed with (lyrically) The Media and (sonically) the Big ’80s production style of Kate Bush and Trevor Horn. It’s a brilliant album that made my Top Five of 2008. Both David Brewis and Field Music keyboardist Andrew Moore, plus about five others on percussion and strings. They’ll only be a quartet at Mercury Lounge, but if they even come close to replicating the album’s wall-of-sound, it will be worth attending.

Tickets are still available and I highly suggest you do. Also on the bill: Boston’s underrated Hallelujah the Hills, Philly’s Arc in Round, and Brooklyn locals Monuments. The Week That Was are doing a few other dates around the U.S. as well as a few at SXSW and all dates are at the bottom of this post.

Paper
Paper

Backtracking a bit, the first of those three consecutive PAPER shows at Cake Shop start tonight (3/4). It’s the Swedish band’s first-ever U.S. gigs and they’ve already been here a few days, blogging about their adventures in the city, systematically cataloging their food intake, complete with number ratings. Pretty funny. Of the three shows, Friday’s (3/6) looks the most interesting to me, with Japan’s Zazen Boys (who we featured earlier in the week) and Your Nature who, until just recently, you may have known as Frankopollis. But tonight’s show (3/4) has local dance-rockers Holy Hail and Phones, which features members of White Rabbits and The Subjects. Not to short Thursday’s show (3/5), of course, which has Talk Normal, Graffiti Monsters and Never Tune.

The Antlers @ Cake Shop during CMJ (more by Kyle Dean Reinford)
The Antlers

And lastly, Thursday night (3/5) at Union Hall, The Antlers are having the record release party for their new album, Hospice, which is out this week and has been getting a whole lot of blog love. It was recently named “Best Album of 2009 So Far” by the folks at NPR’s All Songs Considered. Personally, I don’t start ranking things till at least April but I will say Hospice is definitely worth checking out. (There are a couple tracks from it at the top of this post.) I am curious to see how its dense, multi-layered sound will come off live. It’s a nice night of music, actually, with North Carolina’s chamber pop band Physics of Meaning, and the country jangle of Brooklyn’s Brilliant Mistakes.

Like usual, tour dates and video follows after the jump…

Tindersticks – “Flicker of a Little Girl”

Tindersticks 2009 North American Tour Dates
03/04/2009 Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
03/05/2009 Washington, D.C. @ 9:30 Club
03/06/2009 Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Masonic Temple
03/07/2009 Boston, MA @ Somerville Theatre
03/09/2009 Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa
03/10/2009 Toronto, ON @ Opera House
03/12/2009 Chicago, IL @ Epiphany Episcopal Church

The Week That Was – “Learn to Learn”

The Week That Was 2009 Tour Dates
Mar 7 The Empty Bottle Chicago, Illinois
Mar 9 Mercury Lounge New York, New York
Mar 11 Canadian Music Week at The Green Room Montreal, Quebec
Mar 12 Canadian Music Week at The Gladstone Hotel Toronto, Ontario
Mar 14 Canadian Music Week at The Mod Club Toronto, Ontario
Mar 15 The Grog Shop Cleveland, Ohio
Mar 18 Friends Bar @ SXSW Austin, Texas
Mar 27 Tapestry Club @ St Aloysius Chruch London, London and South East
Apr 9 Drowned In Sound Night at The Deaf Institute Manchester, Northwest
Apr 10 Bird On The Wire @ Bardens Boudoir London, London and South East
May 15 Wood Festival Oxfordshire, London and South East
May 16 Chameleon Cafe Nottingham, Midlands

The Antlers – 2009 Tour Dates
Mar 5 HOSPICE RELEASE SHOW at UNION HALL w/ Physics of Meaning, Brilliant Mistakes, special guests Brooklyn
Mar 9 M ROOM Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Mar 10 METRO GALLERY Baltimore, Maryland
Mar 11 BLACK CAT (BACKSTAGE) D.C., Washington DC
Mar 12 NIGHT LIGHT Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Mar 13 TIN ROOF Charleston, South Carolina
Mar 14 GUITAR BAR w/ Caddywhompus Savannah, Georgia
Mar 15 ALABAMA MUSIC BOX w/ Motel Motel, Caddywhompus Mobile, Alabama
Mar 16 SATURN BAR w/ Motel Motel, Caddywhompus New Orleans, Louisiana
Mar 17 BOONDOCKS w/ Spain Colored Orange Houston, Texas
Mar 18 sxsw tba Austin, Texas
Mar 19 sxsw tba Austin, Texas
Mar 20 SOUNDCHECK MAGAZINE SXSW PARTY @ EMO’S (ANNEX) Austin
Mar 21 sxsw tba Austin, Texas
Mar 22 RUBBER GLOVES w/ Asobi Seksu, Tyvek Denton, Texas
Mar 24 THE VERNON Louisville
Mar 25 NORTHSIDE TAVERN Cincinnati, Ohio
Mar 26 CAFE BOURBON ST Columbus, Ohio
Mar 27 BRILLOBOX Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania