[RerRoktoido]

since I could not find another thread on Saint Etienne, here is one

anyone else ordering A Glimpse Of Stocking ? I'm looking quite forward to it

[nithhysfusy]

I had not heard of it until you posted this.

I am not a huge fan, but I do like them and might order this. I think it's really cool that they do things like this for their fans ... I wish more artists did similar things. It builds a sense of excitement around an artist or band that's harder to do in the MP3 era.

[RerRoktoido]

so, any thoughts here on the released track Goodnight ?

[Tarrccrys]

I'm excited about the new release. I had lost of track of them over the last few years but saw some twitter mentions of the free download of the new track so checked it out.

For those that haven't heard it:



I like.

[chuecaloversvv]

I like it too. Such a guilty pleasure bubblegum! The lyrics are actually pretty good. Looking forward to the new record. I think their albums tend to be quite uneven and have lots of filler but there's always some gems included.

[maxfieldj1]

I really like it!

[Tarrccrys]

A few Saint Etienne classics:


Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Neil Young cover) (Their debut single)


You're In A Bad Way


He's On The Phone


Nothing Can Stop Us


Who do you think you are

[ELURNSERB]

I've loved He's on the phone for years, and I am so happy with the new track, Tonight.
Really looking forward to getting their new album

[Tarrccrys]

From official mailing list:

Hello everybody,

As we've got a new album coming, we would like to come and play it to
you.
We're heading off round the country in May and stopping off at the
following places:

Tuesday 22nd - Sheffield, Leadmill
Wednesday 23rd - Glasgow, Oran Mor
Thursday 24th - Liverpool, Kazemier
All The News Thats Fit To Sing (p2 of 4)
Friday 25th - Cardiff, Gate Theatre
Saturday 26th - Leamington, Assembly Rooms
Monday 28th - London, Palladium
Tickets will go on sale to Saint Etienne database subscribers from
9.00am this Friday 17th February. That's 3 days before going on sale to
the general public. Links to buy will be sent to you on Friday morning
between 8.00-8.30am, so watch this space.
See you down the front!
VIDEO GAMES
The brand new video for the first single from the album, Tonight, will
be premiered on Vevo. Head over to here on Friday to see it. The video,
directed by long-standing Saint Etienne collaborator Paul Kelly,
captures the anticipation and excitement of going to see your favourite
group.
I SHALL BE RELEASED
The Tonight single will be coming out on 12" and 7" as well as a
download EP for you modernists. More details soon, but there will be
some exclusive mixes and b-sides.
And we can also tell you that the new album will be called Words and
Music by Saint Etienne. It's up for pre-order here:
Standard Version Amazon HMV Play
Deluxe Edition Amazon HMV Play
We are working on a special boxset version of the album too, more
information of that coming soon.
See you soon
Love,
Sarah, Bob and Pete xxx I should be able to make the London or Leamington date.

[Tarrccrys]

This Saint Etienne remix of Summer Camp's (check them out if you don't know them!) Losing My mind is pretty great.



It made Track of the Day on The 405
St. Etienne have turned the forthcoming new single from Summer Camp, 'Losing My Mind', into a sombre club hit - with Elizabeth Sankey's vocals colouring the subtle arrangement beautifully.

The track is released on March 19th through Moshi Moshi Records. Tickets booked for London and Leamington.

[Tarrccrys]

The video for Tonight is here here. Doesn't seem to want to let me embed so hit the link.

[maxfieldj1]

Loved that remix of Losing my Mind!

[Tarrccrys]

Saint Etienne announce new album, 'Words and Music by Saint Etienne'
Saint Etienne’s seemingly perpetual relationship with pop music began in the early 1990s, and since then their sound has travelled from what we heard in the eclectic debut album Foxbase Alpha to the dark, folk-influenced Tiger Bay, and even to the atmospheric, electronic grandeur from their album Sound of Water. It’s a journey that has now taken a personal turn as they announce the release their next LP, Words and Music By Saint Etienne.

Saint Etienne member Bob Stanley has defined Words and Music By Saint Etienne as an album "about how music affects your life. How it defines the way you see the world as a child, how it can get you through bad times in unexpected ways, and how songs you’ve known all your life can suddenly develop a new attachment, and hurt every time you hear them. More than how it affects and reflects your life though, the album is about believing in music, living your life by its rules."

This album will be released on May 21st, featuring all the tracks that are listed below. Saint Etienne’s new single ‘Tonight’ will also be released on the 5th March, along with remixes from 2 Bears, Club Clique and Richard X. Watch the video for ‘Tonight’ here:



Tracklisting:

1. Over the Border
2. I’ve Got Your Music
3. Heading For the Fair
4. Last Days of Disco
5. Tonight
6. Answer Song
7. Record Doctor
8. Popular
9. 25 Years
10. DJ
11. When I Was Seventeen
12. I Threw it All Away
13. Haunted Jukebox

[Tarrccrys]

Here's the cover of the new album.

spoilered for size


I love it!

And some information from their record label.

‘Words and Music by Saint Etienne’ the new album, full details.
SAINT ETIENNE
“Words and Music by Saint Etienne”

When Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley talks about their forthcoming album “Words and Music by Saint Etienne”, he affectionately refers to the “strange magic” of pop. About the special alchemy that transmutes even the most mundane of experiences – walking home with the headphones on at night, sitting in a bedroom with your friends in the day, getting ready to go out on the weekend – into a lingering moment of seamless enchantment, one that resonates for the rest of your life.

Saint Etienne, you see, are a band who have had an immutable and enduring relationship with pop music and that pristine pop moment. From the distinctly English sonic collages of their groundbreaking debut “Foxbase Alpha” through to the darker folk-inflected turns of “Tiger Bay” and even the glacial electronic landscapes of “Sound of Water”, the history of pop has clearly had a powerful impression on the trio of Pete Wiggs, Sarah Cracknell and Bob Stanley, with the result being that for this, their ninth studio album, they have assembled what constitutes a long form aural essay explicitly exploring the throughline of themes and memories triggered by music which has run through their entire body of work.

As Stanley elaborates, “Words and Music by Saint Etienne” is an album about “how music affects your life. How it defines the way you see the world as a child, how it can get you through bad times in unexpected ways, and how songs you’ve known all your life can suddenly develop a new attachment, and hurt every time you hear them. More than how it affects and reflects your life though”, he sums up, “the album is about believing in music, living your life by its rules”.

To that end, the album opens with “Over the Border”, a wry, moving spoken-word reflection with singer Sarah Cracknell ruminating on her first, tentative steps into a lifelong love affair with pop, beginning with her using “Top of the Pops as my world atlas” as a child, before mixtapes from first loves soundtrack her teenage years; finally she asks “when I was married, and when I had kids, would Marc Bolan still be so important?” It’s a powerful, emblematic introduction to the album, one that sees the unabashed, glitter strewn, delirious disco highs of “I’ve Got Your Music” and “DJ” sit comfortably alongside the gorgeous, plaintive laments of “I Threw it All Away” and “25 Years”. But from Cracknell calling for salvation through song in the gospel-tinged “Record Doctor” right through to her chanting “tonight when the lights are going down/ I will surrender to the sound” on taster single “Tonight”, the endlessly emotive, sometimes redemptive relationship between music and listener has never been so celebrated and revered, and through the LP there isn’t a moment when Saint Etienne break that pact.

In the course of their work, Saint Etienne have always celebrated the greats of pop past – Stanley credits Goffin and King, Mann and Weil, Greenwich and Barry with helping him to understand relationships at a formative age, for instance – but with “Words and Music By Saint Etienne” they have made an album which sees them join that rich lineage, those writers of pop songs full of strange magic. Tracks such as “When I Was 17” and the aforementioned “Tonight” (produced by Girls Aloud lynchpin Tim Powell and mixed by Richard X) see the group as vital and fresh as ever. Surrender to the sound now; as the group say, there’s no turning back.

[Tarrccrys]

Saint Etienne new single ‘Tonight’ ltd 7″ and 12″
Hello everybody,

The shiny new single Tonight is ready to hit the shops on 12″, 7″ and digital download on 12th March.

The artwork follows in the grand tradition of the Specials’ Too Much Too Young EP. In fact, this picture was taken at a Specials gig too. See if you can spot who sang what (hope you’re enjoying this game — we are).

On the twelve inch, the first excellent mix comes courtesy of our ursine mates 2 Bears — a real beauty this, you’re going to love it — and the second is from Manchester’s own remix machine Club Clique. One of these days, we’ll have to head up to the north west for one of their legendary do’s. If they’ll have us.

Richard X has done an ‘old school’ (ie 1980s) extended mix of the song you already know and love.

And, as an added bonus, the 12″ features an unreleased track from the soundtrack of our Finisterre movie.

Manhattan is exclusive to the seven inch. We gave ourselves the task of taking one of Scott Walker’s latterday ‘difficult’ songs and tried to imagine how it might have sounded with a turn of the seventies Walkersound.

The EP and the 7″ are limited to 1,000 copies of each, will be available here
from Tuesday (6th March) at 5.00pm (GMT).

And remember kids, once they are gone, they are gone!

The tracklists are:
12″ and DL
A1. Tonight (Extended Version)
A2. You Are Here
B1. Tonight — 2 Bears Mix
B2. Tonight — Club Clique Mix

7″
A. Tonight
B. Manhattan

WORDS AND MUSIC BY SAINT ETIENNE

The LP and boxset will be coming soon!

Love,
Sarah, Bob and Pete xxx

[Tarrccrys]

Pretty great remix of Tonight:

[Tarrccrys]

Saint Etienne: why London's still calling
With their eighth album about to be released, Saint Etienne take us on a guided tour of the city that has coloured so much of their work
The wind is blowing the rain up the Thames from the North Sea. The trees that line the South Bank are shivering with each gust and the windows of the Royal Festival Hall's cafe are spattered with water. Nevertheless, it's spring: the trees are laden with buds and from time to time the sun forces a golden arm through the clouds.
It's a very Saint Etienne kind of a morning. Theirs is music suffused with an exquisite sadness, a melancholy so fragile it can be banished with the merest glad thought, just as the sun can sweep away the rain. But it's exactly the wrong kind of morning to suit our plans. No one – not the band, not me, not the photographer – is bursting with excitement about the prospect of standing on successive street corners in the drizzle as we traverse the city celebrated in music and film by Saint Etienne, visiting the landmarks of their past.

Which is why our London tour diverts from the streets to the pub later that day, a cavernous former cinema on the Holloway Road – the A1 – where old men nurse pints and Sarah Cracknell, Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley retire to a corner and reminisce. "It's been really, really good fun," Cracknell says, considering the 21 years of the group's existence. "There haven't been any low points." Then she adds, darkly: "Apart from Chessington World of Adventures."

"You know the puppet show in This is Spinal Tap?" Stanley asks. "It was like that."

"It was a charity event," Wiggs explains. "We'd been persuaded it would be a good thing to do. It was for the Variety Club of Great Britain. We were supposed to be bringing lots of press with us but we didn't realise that was our job. So they were cross we didn't bring camera crews. It was a PA – we were miming – and before us there were Australian clowns driving miniature cars and motorbikes, playing electric guitars while they drove. When they came off you could hear the roar of applause. Then Judith Chalmers interviewed Sarah on stage, and it was really awkward because she had no idea who we were. While that happened you could hear the flip-up seats banging as people left. The interview went on for ages because I didn't realise we were meant to be on stage. We heard the backing tapes start and ran on. My keyboard wasn't even plugged in – the plug was just dangling at the end of the cable. The only people left in the audience were these kids at the front in wheelchairs who couldn't get out. Afterwards, one of the clowns came up to me and said: 'Never mind, mate.' And we didn't even raise any money for charity."

It seems fitting that Saint Etienne's most shaming moment came in the suburbs. They were suburbanites who escaped to the city at the earliest opportunity. Wiggs and Stanley grew up in Croydon, south London, a musically mythologised map of which appears on the cover of their new album, their eighth, Words and Music by Saint Etienne, where Wiggs, even as a child, would gaze in awe at the London portrayed in the TV series Paddington. Cracknell lived in Old Windsor: "As soon as I was 15, my friend Alison would get on the train at Ascot and I'd get on at Egham and we'd go up to Kensington Market. Well, at first it was to go ice skating at Richmond. We were serious about our skating."

Childhood friends Stanley and Wigg were so in thrall to the capital they'd all but lie to themselves to feel part of the city. "The cachet of London was such that we used to go to pubs by the nearest stop that had a London postcode, because Croydon had a Surrey postcode," Wiggs remembers. "So we'd go to Norwood and New Cross, just to go to the pub. 'We're out in London tonight! Going uptown!'"

Nevertheless, for a group who employ London and its landmarks almost as a character in their songs – not for nothing is one of their best-ofs called London Conversations – they seem to have slipped almost by accident into being chroniclers of the place. "I don't know why that is, apart from writing ourselves," Stanley says. And in the great psychic divide marked by the Thames that separates one sort of Londoner from another, they come down firmly on one side. "South London's not really London, is it?" Stanley says. "It's just an endless suburb. Also, there's obvious musical heritage in the bits of London I'm drawn to – Joe Meek in the Holloway Road. And Muswell Hill always seemed like a grimy place from the Kinks."

We assemble at the Festival Hall in part because Saint Etienne were artists in residence there in 2006/7, and in part because it seems such a perfect symbol for the group: London's past, present and future in one concrete shell. For all their sense of history, Saint Etienne's music has always been sleekly modern, even as it nods to the past. And while Cracknell mourns the steady loss of London's old-fashioned pubs to the gastro invaders, and Stanley moans about faux-gentrification that does nothing to improve a street except drive out its previous inhabitants, Words and Music doesn't sound like the work of Luddites. It was recorded with former members of the Xenomania writing/production team, responsible for the success of Girls Aloud.

"We were all working at Xenomania at various points in the last few years. It was pretty inspiring – you'd start really basically, sitting in a room humming melodies into a Walkman," Stanley says. "Then you'd take them into another room and work on them until they sounded like hit records. Alesha Dixon would make tea for everyone; Nicola Roberts would be watching MTV next door – I never heard her speak; Neil Tennant would call you up to the studio to put handclaps on something – it didn't bother me too much that he called me 'Lawrence'. It was an ideal setup, like the Brill Building, but with soft furnishings and a big picture of Serge Gainsbourg on the wall." Again past, present and future combined.

After the Festival Hall we go to 83 Clerkenwell Road, where we stand outside the offices once occupied by Creation Records, then by Heavenly Recordings, Saint Etienne's long-time label. Though Saint Etienne have often stood on the fringes of scenes – indie pop, indie dance, Britpop – they've never been at the centre of any. "There was more of a connection with Heavenly, through the Social [a club set up by the label] and the people there. We made loads of friends and that felt like a community," Wiggs says.

We hail another cab and head north. Stanley points out the pub that marked the westernmost outpoint of the Kray twins' empire; we bemoan the Islington Academy, a venue built in a shopping centre – until Saint Etienne remember that they, too, have played in a shopping centre, at the opening of a Virgin Megastore in San Sebastián. And we arrive at the site of Saint Etienne's old rehearsal studios on the Holloway Road, now long gone. We stand in the rain staring down an alley at nothing, getting wet. At which point the pub beckons.

Before she heads back to her current home in Oxfordshire, Cracknell talks about what would have been our next location – her mid-80s flat just up the road in Archway, above a gun shop, where she was too terrified of her surroundings to do much more than venture out for kebabs. "Whenever we left the flat there'd be kids shouting abuse at us. So for food we had a sack of potatoes and I'd make tuna surprise." What was the surprise? In unison, Wiggs and Stanley answer for her: "No tuna!"

Instead of going out, she and her flatmate would hook up the radio to an echo unit, get stoned and watch cricket with Brian Johnston's voice reverberating round the room. "But it was good," she says. "It made me feel on the edge."

Stanley raises an eyebrow and laughs. "On the edge of Highgate."

Saint Etienne tour the UK from 22-28 May

[nithhysfusy]

Their album is streaming on NPR's First Listen:

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/20/151711...-saint-etienne

Haven't listened to it yet myself, but I am excited to. They're such a great, underrated band.

[chuecaloversvv]

Some nice moments on the new album! Love "I Threw It All Away" for its urban baroque pop flavour.

[Tarrccrys]

I like what I'm hearing too although I've only had one listen while doing other stuff. Need to settle down and pay attention!

I'm seeing them for the first time tomorrow. SO EXCITED!