“It feels like October even though it may not be… Something in the streetlights, the glow, the orange glow in the rain… and then you’re home, put some tunes on and fall asleep…”
Arriving late on Saint Etienne‘s new album The Night, ‘Wonderlight’, is an atmospheric interlude, synth tones and a few brief lines that catch the general mood. The happy-tired comfort of bed after a night out, falling asleep with music playing and rain on the window. Sarah Cracknell’s soft voice soothing us, as if she’s reading us a bedtime story. Which, in a way, she is.
Bob, Pete, and Sarah could easily be a picture book gang, forever chasing unlikely adventures. They’ve always seemed more like mates than pop stars, for some of us they’re just part of the (elegant, midcentury modern) furniture. So, it can be easy to take them for granted a little bit, forget just how great they can be. Over thirty years into their career they’re still finding new ways to explore, these days leaning more towards their art rather than their dance side. If news of a Saint Etienne album called ‘The Night’ prompts Frankie Valli’s northern soul stomper to start playing on your mental jukebox I’m sure they would allow themselves a wry smile, but this time the knowing reference is a double bluff. The night is both setting and subject for the album and while there may have been dancing earlier, it exists in the quiet and solitary hours.
Following on from the liminal memory glide of 2021’s I’ve Been Trying To Tell You, The Night finds the trio getting even more sleepily ambient. Dropping the head nod breakbeats and samples that carried that album along and settling into the warm soft focus of low light. Rather than wondering about a whole era it’s smaller in scope, internal, turning over half thoughts and memories in the slow time of day. It’s also virtually beatless, the patter and trickle of rain running though it linking fuzzy fractured dabs of sound.
It’s my impression that I’ve Been Trying To Tell You was generally well received but if your heart is sinking because you felt it was low on songs and Sarah I can offer you some comfort that there’s more of both on The Night, despite the very mellow ambient vibe. ‘Gold’ feels almost like a demo of piano and voice looped and sunk into the overall flow but they resist the temptation to fully submerge things. At the album’s centre ‘When You Were Young’ spins the prevailing sense of idly meandering reverie. The final ‘Alone Together’ has a laid back country feel with glistening keys and liquid guitar nudged along by rim taps and brushes. Alone but not lonely it holds that peaceful moment a while before dissolving into a final word “Time flies, it slips and slides…”
As much as its elements are atomised and smeared, you sometimes wish they would draw them out for longer, get even more spaced out and mellow. As the album nears its end the longest track ‘Hear My Heart’ uses vocal loops and fragments to gently build something lush and swaying. It’s not hard to imagine an extended version of the album that tripled the run time in a similar manner. At times the whole album feels suspended between deep breaths at the edge of sleep. I can confirm it works as a soundtrack for drifting serenely away, a warm blanket of comfort. Let’s get crepuscular.
