Update: A new interview wherein Denis discusses her Tindersticks collaborations has been released. Find it and the original story below.
It’s less the question if Claire Denis and Tindersticks are modern cinema’s greatest director-musician collaboration; it’s more a matter of how far above the competition they stand. But many of their soundtracks––as rich as any of the studio albums that make Tindersticks one of our greatest working bands––haven’t streamed, instead relegated to a (treasured) collection released in 2011. Completists sometimes have to rely on the films themselves: frontman Stuart A. Staples’ solo score for Let the Sunshine In and the band’s full assembly on Both Sides of the Blade have remained unreleased.
To promote forthcoming shows that juxtapose their soundtracks with Denis’ images––tickets are online if you’re in Paris or Lyon––Tindersticks have released a handful of soundtracks once only in the collection (The Intruder, 35 Shots of Rum, White Material) and the aforementioned scores for Sunshine and Blade. (The former veers between ethereal and jazzy; the latter sounds like a through-and-through horror film.)
When I talked to Stuart A. Staples last year he described their collaboration thusly:
I do have so much freedom, but when I kind of make a piece of music that’s wrong for a scene, she’ll say to me “this is wrong.” Not “wrong,” but she’ll say “this doesn’t work because this, this, and this.” That’s the moment I get a lot more insight into the way she’s feeling about… the real minutiae of what she’s really feeling. Nothing will ever get past her. I think all the people, all we can do is present, feel something, respond to something, and offer her something, and hopefully it excites her or chimes with her.
Stream and watch below: