“the gayest band ever”

Can’t remember which of my friends described Saint Etienne thus, but I can understand their trepidation. Saint Etienne fans are usually the sort of people who like Camera Obscura as well, and probably take maypole-dancing lessons before listening to some C86 and drinking weak tea. Which is a shame, because Saint Etienne are amazing. Jen disagrees heartily.

Why post now? Well, they’ve got another singles collection coming out on 29th September called London Conversations which is a bit rich since it’s their fourth, and they’ve only released one record since the last one, or none if you live in America. Yeah yeah, I’m not counting free 7″s given away with magazines. Get back to your maypole, dickhead. I can geek it out with the best of them when it comes to Saint Etienne.

So I thought I’d post some tracks that haven’t made it onto this collection, from the rather mournful end of their spectrum. First up it’s “Carnt Sleep” from their first record Foxbase Alpha, a sparse, elegantly cold turkey number that invents trip-hop three years early, but don’t hold that against it.

Saint Etienne – Carnt Sleep

Then we’ve got two from their masterpiece So Tough, which is a stunning collage of different London musical styles and snatched bits of dialogue from radio plays and street scenes. There’s sunshiney pop, acid-soaked psychedelia, 60’s pastiche, piano ballads, flowered up rave, longish-form techno, skanking dub (honestly not rubbish) and demented cut-up speed-freak filth like “Conchita Martinez”. Here’s the clattering, spidery, doom-laden “Calico” and the totally heartbroken ”No Rainbows For Me”.

Saint Etienne – Calico

Saint Etienne – No Rainbows For Me

That album has dated pretty well, which cannot be said for their next effort Tiger Bay. It’s still fantastic in my opinion, but the clubby tracks do conjure images of cheesecloth, waistcoats, big glasses of red wine, and appalling makeup. Still, there are songs on it that still sound totally fresh, like “I Buy American Records”, which sounds like something a housewife would hum while getting ready to meet her lunchtime lover, and “Marble Lions”, which has a wonderful salt-aired swell coursing underneath its twinkling prettiness.

Saint Etienne – I Buy American Records

Saint Etienne – Marble Lions

And so finally to Sound Of Water, which I actually own on both CD and LP, both incidentally bought in America where I’m heading for a month starting next week, so no blogging for a while after this from me. The album always reminds me of being 15 and on holiday in California, with it tinnily playing out of the speakers in a rented SUV as Cali’s epic agriculture span past.

Saint Etienne – Don’t Back Down