When you think of Saint Etienne, many things come to mind, Sarah Cracknell’s feather boa, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs’ pudding bowl haircuts, the eye catching album covers, those love songs to a rose tinted London and a back catalogue crammed with classic British pop songs.
Without even stopping to think you can immediately come up with five; ‘Like A Motorway’, ‘You’re In A Bad Way’, ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’, ‘Avenue’ and when you thought they no longer made the sort of pop music to make Kylie worried they collaborated with Richard X on a new track from 2009’s Best Of collection, ‘London Conversations‘, the sublime ‘This Is Tomorrow’, possibly their best ever single.
Over the past eighteen months each of their seven albums of original material plus ‘Continental’ (originally only released in Japan) have been subject to the ‘Deluxe’ CD repackaging process. The final two (‘Tales from Turnpike House’ and ‘Good Humour’) have just been re-released so what better time than now to sit back, have that inevitable cup of black coffee (in a greasy spoon in Primrose Hill, obviously) and re-appraise them all?
Foxbase Alpha (1991)
The music scene in 1991 was dominated by spotty junkies in plaid shirts making sludgy rock music, the Seattle/grunge scene was the soundtrack to many a disenfranchised teenagers bedroom; Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains & Soundgarden were making angsty rock music for kids despite all members pushing thirty. It was also the Year Freddie Mercury died and the behemoth that broke Kurt Cobain was released, ‘Nevermind’, a big year of even bigger changes.
The UK music scene had had a period of stagnation after the acid house boom of the late 80s and while the world was waiting for new product by The Stone Roses, we had ugly no chancers with a sampler making thuggy baggy music, bands such as The Soup Dragons & The Farm were putting the world to rights in sports casual clothes and crappy cover versions.
Then 1991 happened, there probably hasn’t been a year as important for indie music in the UK than this, way more important than 1994s Britpop boom. This is the year that gave us My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Loveless’, ‘Screamadelica’ by Primal Scream, Swervedriver’s ‘Raise’, Teenage Fanclub’s ‘Bandwagonesque’. Each of them stand as truly great albums, all tellingly released on the Creation label. Foxbase Alpha, Saint Etienne’s debut album also enjoys such a lofty position much loved in many a discerning music fan’s collection?
Saint Etienne at this stage were not the four piece (Ian Catt being an equally essential member of the group but rarely mentioned) we grew to love, more a project based around Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley’s production with rotating vocalists. ‘Foxbase Alpha’ is gloriously schizophrenic; pop, dub, techno & ambient music accompanying their true love of 60’s girl groups, songs penned by Brian Wilson, the cut and paste sampling of De La Soul & The Jungle Brothers and the production skills of Phil Spector.
Foxbase was very much an album of its time and with almost twenty years elapsing since release, it has suffered from the 1990’s production techniques used but that doesn’t prevent their knack of great of making great pop shine through to this day.
‘Girl VII’ may have taut house beats but the jangling indie guitars clearly show where their allegiance lied, the samples used on ‘She’s the one’ are so ramshackle they sound more like a stroke of calculated genius than a lack of money and studio experience, the closing refrain of “He kissed me…he hit me and it felt like a kiss” is the clearest indication of there they were coming from, something which lasts even to this day.
The true gem here is of course ‘Nothing can stop us now’ with its choppy guitars and flute solos, a perfect combination of nineties pop music and Northern Soul club stompers.
In between Foxbase and second album So Tough, they released several non album singles with some incredible b-sides and these make up the majority of disc two. ‘Kiss and make up’ is six unforgettable minutes of chilled ambient pop while the dirty beats, vinyl crackles and pimped up wah wah guitars on ‘Filthy’ featuring teenage rapper Q-Tee Predates trip hop and in particular Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ album by three whole years.
The male diva groans on ‘Speedway’ and the primitive house track ‘Chase HQ’ sound like the result of a night out at Shoom; these tracks epitomise how at this time they were frantically throwing as many things at the musical wall to see what stuck, these were truly creative times for the band despite some of it now sounding like it should have stayed in the vaults.
Let’s face it though, who these days would have the guts, nerve and sheer naivety to you know…give it a go?
8/10
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So Tough (1993)
Taking the album name from a 1970 Beach Boys album was a signal of intent. If you’re going to connect yourself to the finest pop group of all time, stakes need to be raised.
Luckily, this 1993 sophomore album was the first album they made as a band and everything clicked into place from the outset, quality failing to be anything other than top notch.
Opening track ‘Mario’s Cafe’ is masterful. Tough dance beats, mournful violin and flute solos play with lyrics about “Rainy café, Kentish Town, Tuesday, joking around still digging that sound” while enquiring “Did you see the Klf last night?” , these lyrics made London sound like the coolest place in the world in just under four minutes.
Interspersed with samples from films such as Billy Liar, That’ll be the day and assorted 60’s kitchen sink dramas, they showed a new found confidence in what they were trying to achieve with this album and found them dipping into other genres with ease such as the ska influenced house rocker ‘Railway Jam’.
The singles released from the album are some of their absolute best, the otherworldly ambience on ‘Avenue’ adds a warmth to the then prevalent shoegaze scene and ‘You’re in a bad way’ is the sound of the Supremes if they were born in Archway, even the lyrics channel the spirit of their mid 60’s output, Sarah is in irresistible form as she advises “Jeans are old and your hair’s all wrong, don’t you know that crew cuts and trainers are out again? Going out, you’re feeling low….running for cover it looks like it’s going to rain (what a shame)”.
The bonus CD is equally varied, they cover Teenage Fanclub’s finest hour ‘Everything flows’ and transform it into dark pop music, while another single from this period, ‘Who do you think you are’ is so damn heartbreaking it will have you searching for a Tennant / Lowe song writing credit.
Merging the beats from Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy the silence’ with flamenco guitars on Duke Duvet’ is enthralling, however their dubious cover of ‘I’m too sexy’ highlights how there will never be any need for acid house reinterpretations of Right Said Fred songs.?
‘So Tough’ is an album which has proved to be timeless, the reason for this is how they looked to the past, present and future and came up with their ideas of how it should sound. It’s a given fact that anybody who has made a good pop album since has a copy of this one to reference to.
Their second classic album of the 90’s in a row? That is beyond question.
9/10
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Tiger Bay (1994)
ClashMusic reviewed ‘Tiger Bay’ on it’s release earlier this year, read Chris Todd’s review HERE.http://www.clashmusic.com/reviews/saint-etienne-tiger-bay-deluxe-edition
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Continental (199)
When it comes to an odds and sods exercise, Saint Etienne’s 1993 compilation ‘You need a mess of help to stand alone’ is untouchable, it’s one of their best albums. This album, originally only released in Japan serves as a similar full stop on one part of their musical journey and heralding the beginning of the next.
After ‘Tiger Bay’, there was a full four year gap before their next album ‘Good Humor’, they had ridden the wave of baggy but decided to lay low while Britpop came and thankfully went. During this time Sarah embarked on a blink and you’d miss it solo career and in 1997, they released this.
This is a pointless addition to the re-issues but within you’ll find some great lost tracks that stand up to their best material. The cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Stormtrooper in Drag’ produced by a pre-Xenomania Brian Higgins is full on poppers drenched euro-trance with Cracknell on delectable form. Equally as flouncey is ‘He’s on the phone’, their last attempt at chart domination which at the time of release in 1995 veered all too close to the all out Euro pop cheese that was the sound at the time but now serves as a definite point in their career where they decided that it wasn’t the video but Gina G and the ilk who killed the radio star, as a last stab at an all out pop hit, it’s damn near perfect albeit hideously dated.
Tapping into the sound of the time was their foray into drum n bass; ‘The Sea‘, mixed by PFM, but instead of the hundreds of lame tracks that were around at this time where everyone had to have a drum n bass remix, this still sounds like a vital slab of the most atmospheric stuff you can find in that genre while the sun drenched dub of ‘Lover plays the bass’ is delightfully drowsy and alluring.
7/10
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Good Humor (1998)
Produced by Tore Johansson whose productions tellingly include The Cardigans. ‘Good Humor’, their fourth album could be any album by the Swedish pop group. This was a turning point for the band which in terms of sales they never fully recovered from.
Creative abandon was replaced with an indie pop sheen. This was the sound of the band going through the motions, oddly similar to Kylie’s ‘Impossible Princess’ album, the one she went all ‘indie’. This is the sound of Saint Etienne, always affiliated with the indie scene, doing what was expected of them but not doing it well.
5/10
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Sound of Water (2000)
If 98’s Good Humour was the sound of a band scratching their collective heads, this follow up from 2000 is an assured step towards something more challenging, low key and left of centre. This is generally achieved when Sean O’ Hagan and To Rococo Rot are on board on arrangement duties, O’Hagan’s soaring orchestration and Beach Boys obsession particularly prevalent especially on tracks such as ’Sycamore’ and ‘Downey CA’.
The one killer track here is mournful ’Heart failed (in the back of the taxi)‘ but without Ian Catt’s on board, they lose his prowess in pop music. Although very atmospheric, the post rock sheen tends to set your mind to drifting elsewhere.
6/10
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Finisterre (2002)
Originally released in 2002, Saint Etienne’s sixth album embraces harsh electronic beats and cold Germanic synths one minute and emotional early seventies Bruce Johnston compositions for The Beach Boys the next, listen to ’Stop and think it over’ and wonder how the famously lawsuit happy band’s lawyers weren’t straight on the phone.
‘Finisterre’ was accompanied by a film of the same name, a film about London and all there is to love and hate narrated by British actor Michael Jayston. This narration is also used on the album but fails to be as effective as the samples they used on ‘So Tough’ and at times sounding like they were just put in there to marry up the two together but fails to be cohesive.
Saint Etienne perform best when they are wrenching emotion from their machines, the best example here is the throbbing disco-ism and vocoders effects on ‘New Thing’. ‘B92’ follows the same vein, urgent Patrick Cowley influenced disco and Sarah proclaiming that “The boys are back in town…and nothing can stop us now, this is our wall of sound”, it’s arrogant swagger a pleasant surprise.
Elsewhere ‘Amateur’ shows off a newly acquired aggressive edge, a show stopping track of pissed off techno pop and guitar feedback, it could almost be a musical response to Radiohead’s ‘Idioteque’ while the swooning title track has them lamenting the loss of innocence and rise of stupidity in telling lines such as “So look beyond Big Brother, gossip culture, So bored of stupidity…the myth of common sense” backed by meaty break beats showing they still love to throw a spanner in the works when least expected.
Although their chart bothering days were behind them, they hadn’t lost any of their wide eyed love of experimentation and willingness to refuse playing it safe but when they did stick to the formula, it backfired. The unfortunate rapping on ‘Soft like me’ reaches Ant & Dec levels on the cringeometer especially when it’s Saint Etienne at their perkiest while lead single ‘Action’ co-written by chief Xenomania bod Brian Higgins revisited their euro pop worst.
Minor gripes aside, Finisterre is a welcome addition to the Saint Etienne back catalogue and with the benefit of hindsight, you become fully aware of the treats that were to unfold with Goldfrapp’s ‘Supernature’ album who were obviously listening very closely….a reason alone to love this album.
8/10
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Tales From Turnpike House (2005)
Their latest album; 2005’s ‘Tales from Turnpike House’, a concept album about a block of flats in Islington had them continuing the momentum they captured on 2002‘s ‘Finisterre‘, embellishing their sound with even more lashings of Beach Boys instrumentation and harmonies, the latter thanks to Tony Rivers, a veteran in lush backing vocals for Cliff Richards and even more dubiously, Shakin’ Stevens.
‘Milk Bottle Symphony’ marries Saint Etienne’s brand of pop with The Beach Boys’ ‘Cabinessence’ or the ‘Good Vibrations’ suite to marvellous effect. ‘A good thing’ tries to recapture their mid 90’s peak with harder beats and an uplifting chorus but falls short in trying too hard. This must be at least the 15th song of theirs to mention going to the café showing they rarely frequent these places nowadays days as no romance can be gleaned from a trip the Starbucks or Costa’s that now plague London high streets.
The pinnacle of ‘Turnpike house’ is reached with the spectacular ’Last orders for Gary Stead’, an almost chugging glam rock guitar is embraced with clanking pianos and more sublime Wilson brothers vocal harmonising. Xenomania also throw in their two pennies worth with ‘Stars above us’, another song to add to the huge cannon of superior pop songs Saint Etienne can still knock out in their sleep.
All this and a duet with David Essex concerning a couple arguing about living in or leaving London which is…well, the less said about THAT the better.
7/10
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Words by Chris Todd
