SAINT ETIENNE
I’VE BEEN TRYING TO TELL YOU
HEAVENLY
Approached blind, it would be easy to mistake Saint Etienne’s latest for remixes of unearthed songs. But while their peculiar brand of pop has always been arcane it’s never been this mysterious, their soundscapes eviscerated of their more immediate traits. Driven by an urge to examine current misty-eyed fondness for the turn of the century, their 10th album is largely constructed from “samples and sounds drawn from the years 1997- 2001” and feels like an ambient producer – Global Communication, say – has ‘reimagined’ an apparently absent original album. If it’s little like the Saint Etienne you know, it’s also frequently as lovely as this idea sounds. Little K offers almost six beatific minutes of downtempo bucolic electronica and the title track’s quiet dramas are pillowy and echoing. Elsewhere, decelerated tapes are employed, with opener Music Again looping a simple Sarah Cracknell vocal over woozy acoustic guitar and drums, while rhythm slowly blossoms beneath Blue Kite’s fuzz of kaleidoscopic fairground noises. Quasi-dub also fills out Pond House and Penlop’s chimerical soundscapes, helping make this doubtless commercially suicidal record arguably their most surprising and beguiling release to date.