Saint Etienne, the much-loved trio who soundtracked London in the nineties, will have their career, in all its multi-layered, multi-coloured glory reviewed on ‘London Conversations’ - a complete, concise Very Best Of collection out September 29th.
From their Balearic breakthrough ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ to the effervescent swinger ‘Nothing Can Stop Us’… the sharp electro beats of ‘Who Do You Think You Are’ and ‘He’s On The Phone’ to the nu-disco, scratch-your-eyes-out ‘Sylvie’, Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley, and Pete Wiggs‘ run of hits, collected together here for the first time, makes for a supernaturally strong collection.
Pulling together 35 songs from an 18 year-old odyssey, across several different record labels, ‘London Conversations’ travels from blissful baggy ecstasy through breakbeat rap (‘Filthy’), proto-Britpop and early folk-tronica, to 21st century pop and beyond. It’s the secret history of the city that they love….
The release will come in 3 formats: the 18-track, single CD Very Best Of featuring the single that got away, a double with every other a-side and some of their best album tracks from their gold debut ‘Foxbase Alpha’ to the highly acclaimed ‘Tales From Turnpike House’, plus a lovingly bound triple disc set with a DVD of their videos. Many of these were directed by Paul Kelly, with whom the group have more recently made the trio of London films ‘Finisterre’, ‘What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day?’, and ‘This Is Tomorrow’.
Leading off the album is a brand new Saint Etienne single, ‘Burnt Out Car’, produced by Brian Higgins of the Xenomania pop factory, responsible for the sound of Girls Aloud, Sugababes, and Gabriela Cilmi. A second, brand new single, ‘This Is Tomorrow’, the theme from their last movie, will follow later in the year. Both are more than up to the 'Et's previously classy standards.
Saint Etienne were always changing, hard to pigeonhole but, always…ALWAYS…they were shiny, melodic, super-pop. With consecutive singles, they could evoke kitchen sink dramas, sweaty clubs at 3am, or a trip across the Alps in a vintage Porsche. Arguably, they were the very finest pop group of their generation. They played a crucial part in the creation of the indie/dance/pop nexus, now a staple of modern music-making 15 years on.
‘London Conversations’ marks the start of an ambitious Saint Etienne reissues campaign set up with the help of Universal Music Catalogue, which will stretch well into 2009. The band’s entire, 10-album back catalogue will be lovingly re-packaged as a double CD (with rare and previously unreleased recordings added to each) and released in pairs, over the next year.