Tindersticks x Claire Denis

The Tindersticks’s ambitious new five-disc box-set collects the band’s scores for French director Claire Denis; today we stream the previously unreleased track “The Purple Sea”—which appeared in the 2004 film L'intrus (The Intruder)—set to stills from various Denis titles including White Material and Nenette et Boni. “The experience of L’intrus was the moment when I understood that our connection was really strong,” Denis says of her 15-year-long creative partnership with the lounge-rock act. “It was more than music––[frontman Stuart Staples] was family.” A poetic odyssey following a reclusive man (played by Denis regular Michel Subor) and his search for an estranged son, L’intrus is soundtracked by a score Staples characterizes as “anti-music.”  “The film is about a failing heart, so I wanted the main guitar part to be this disjointed heartbeat, changing and shifting,” he says. To launch the lavish collection, which also contains a 64-page bound booklet with color plates of movie stills, the group will tour Europe later this year. Claire Denis Film Scores (1996-2009) is out now on Constellation Records.