Tag Archives: Saint Etienne

On Record – Saint Etienne: International (Heavenly Recordings)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

After 35 years as a successful pop trio, Saint Etienne – Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs – are finally calling time on their career as a group.

International is the last of their thirteen studio albums, and also the most collaborative, with spots for Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers, Confidence Man, Vince Clarke, Paul Hartnoll, and – strikingly – Nick Heyward.

What’s the music like?

Late summer is the perfect time to be releasing an album like this. Perhaps inevitably there is a rich element of nostalgia, but there is no sitting on laurels or wallowing in sadness – though it has to be said the final few tracks leave a tear in the eye.

Rather, it is more of the same – slightly arty pop but with really rewarding diversions in league with the guests. The breezy Brand New Me, with Confidence Man, is a treat, Cracknell at her most winsome in the vocal. Glad is of a similar vintage, pointing towards the club in Tom Rowlands’ production. Already at the venue are Paul Hartnoll and Vince Clarke, with the former’s work on Take Me To The Pilot creating visions of a 1990s basement. Clarke’s work on Two Lovers is more reflective, but again ideally suited to Cracknell’s versatile voice, which has many more tones than we often give it credit for.

The Nick Heyward collaboration Gobetweens is a lyrical and musical treat, rhyming ‘Letraset’ with ‘internet’ to emphasise the contrast between the late 1980s of the band’s forming and the technology now. Facebook also falls under the microscope, a subtly dismissive take in the closing The Last Time. This is where everything comes to a head and a tear comes to the eye, Saint Etienne’s final statement leaving us all a bit emotional.

Does it all work?

It does – for one last time. This is a winsome collection, the band playing to their strengths, and clearly having fun right up to the end.

Is it recommended?

It is essential for Saint Etienne devotees to have the band’s final album as a keepsake; all the more so when it is revealed to be an ideal summing up of their achievements. Equal parts tenderness and attitude, it does exactly what they promised, delivering bittersweet pop winners that cover nostalgia and the future with panache. A wholly appropriate signing-off.

For fans of… Goldfrapp, Happy Mondays, The Cardigans, Divine Comedy

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Published post no.2,666 – Tuesday 23 September 2025

On Record – Saint Etienne: The Night (Heavenly Recordings)

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by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

Saint Etienne’s twelfth album, their first in three years, is written as an antidote to the chaos of daily life, an ambient complement to the sheer speed and noise of 21st century life.

Pete Wiggs captures its essence: “We wanted to continue the mellow and spacey mood of the last album, perhaps even double down on it, but it’s a very different album, not based on samples; Songs, moods and spoken pieces drift in and out whilst rain pours down outside. It’s the kind of record I like to listen to in the dark or with my eyes closed. Half Light is about the edge of night, the last rays of the sun flickering through the branches of trees, communing with nature and seeing things that might not be there.”

Bob Stanley also expressed an interest the band had in finding the state between wakefulness and sleep, a kind of dream space with broken-up thoughts and random memories.

What’s the music like?

Soothing, sonorous and often beautiful. Sarah Cracknell’s voice proves ideal for such an ambient sojourn, whether in spoken word or in the soft vocal tracks that are dotted through the album.

The field recordings create an easy ambience, dressing the music with thoughts that drift in and out of focus. The music, too, finds sharp points of reference among its foggier reminiscences. The clarinet is put to fetching use on the wistful When You Were Young, which has a beautiful chorus – as does Nightingale.

No Rush brings a mottled beauty to its slowly shifting chords, not a million miles from the Romanza of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony no.5 in its ability to stop the senses. Gold is more obviously song-based, while Preflyte opens out into wider textures, bells tolling before Cracknell’s heartfelt vocal. Hear My Heart is a beauty, the voice against a windswept canvas.

Does it all work?

It does. Saint Etienne are masters of pop music dressed with a forlorn beauty, but this clever use of field recordings and textures shows them to be equally adept at making music that supports relaxation of the mind.

Is it recommended?

Enthusiastically. The Night achieves just what it set out to do, which is to provide an antidote to the over stimulation we receive in our daily lives. It is an understated beauty.

For fans of… Broadcast, Stereolab, Yo La Tengo, Bibio, Cocteau Twins

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Published post no.2,399 – Friday 20 December 2024

On Record – Saint Etienne: I’ve Been Trying To Tell You (Heavenly)

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reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

For their tenth album, Saint Etienne have taken a trip down memory lane. The trio of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell have all been recalling events, thoughts and emotions from 1997 to 2001, a period when the UK was basking in rarefied optimism under New Labour. Was it all a bad dream? Was it as good a time as people thought?

Using samples and clever production techniques, the trio pose these questions and more, in the form of a sample-based album that uses clips from the time period. For the first time – presumably for lockdown reasons – the album was recorded remotely, with no need for a studio – and with assistance from composer Guy Bousfield, who wrote two songs on the album.

What’s the music like?

Very relaxed and dreamy, even for a Saint Etienne album. It is much less song-based than is the norm for the trio, and the aim of the gentle memory jogging is subtle rather than firmly pointed. The focus on sonic snippets and the dubby, instrumental approach could easily be teleported from the period in question. We hear less from Sarah Cracknell as a vocalist, but that means that the times she does appear are accentuated, her phrases given extra importance. The profile of the music yields more satisfaction with each listen, as the manipulation of the samples is made clearer.

The samples themselves are unexpected – with appearances for Honeyz, The Lightning Seeds, Lighthouse Family and Samantha Mumba that if anything emphasise the musical distance we have put between ourselves and the period in focus. The field recordings have a more immediate effect of how society might have been before the pandemic, creating their own form of yearning.

Cracknell it is who starts the album, with several vocal lines competing for the foreground in Music Again, where a loping beat ebbs and flows gently. Fonteyn pans out even further, with the wide open natural spaces including birdsong at the end – a quality shared by many recently-released albums, recorded under lockdown conditions. Fonteyn segues into the gorgeous Little K, a warm fuzz of a track with dappled harp and sun-blushed ambience.

Blue Kite is glitchy in profile, drifting in and out of focus, before working up more of a head of steam. Pond House has a slow, wide open beat with a woozy texture, enhancing the dream state along with Cracknell’s ‘here it comes again’ loop. The singer comes to the front of the virtual stage for Penlop, a lullaby in all but name that calms the senses, before the gentle lapping of Broad River completes the recollections.

Does it all work?

Yes. Albums rooted in nostalgia often make the mistake of over-using the rose tinted spectacles in their longing backwards glances, but if anything I’ve Been Trying To Tell You does the opposite, in an unforced but gently nagging way.

The album is more a single construction than previous Saint Etienne long players, its relative lack of songs compensated by the bigger overall structure.

Is it recommended?

It is. I’ve Been Trying To Tell You poses as many questions as it answers, and although it works extremely well as an album to get horizontal with, there are many layers to its genius. It subtly but pointedly asks where the UK is now, where it is going, and were we all sold a dummy as the millennium approached?

There is an accompanying film from photographer Alasdair McLellan but the music for I’ve Been Trying To Tell You creates its own beautifully rendered imagery for the listener to lose themselves in. It is a rather lovely album.

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