Saint Etienne have announced that their new album, International, will be released on 5 September via Heavenly while teasing that it may be their last…
The album will feature contributions from Confidence Man’s Janet Planet (on Brand New Me), Erol Alkan (on Sweet Melodies), Vince Clarke (on Two Lovers), Nick Heyward (on The Go Betweens), Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll (on Take Me To The Pilot), Xenomania’s Tim Powell (on Dancing Heart and He’s Gone) and Doves’ guitarist Jez Williams (on new single, Glad).
And – sadly for the band’s legion of fans – it may be their swansong. “The group aren’t splitting up as such – they still remain the best of friends after 35 years recording together,” says the album’s press release. “But they don’t feel like they want to go on forever and wanted to go out with a bang.”
New single Glad has been co-written and co-produced with the Chemical Brothers’ Tom Rowlands and features Doves’ Jez Williams on guitar with a video directed by Scrub.
“We asked Tom if he had any songs in progress that might suit Saint Etienne, and he sent a backing track that he’d been working on with Jez from Doves,” says Saint Etienne vocalist Sarah Cracknell. “We fell in love with it straight away, and the top line melody and words for Glad came easy.”
“The song is about taking pleasure in everyday things like nature and the outdoors when life is otherwise getting you down,” added the band’s Pete Wiggs.
Nothing Can Stop Us Now
Foxbase Alpha, the band’s 1991 debut album, would go on to define the UK’s indie/dance crossover with Cracknell’s English-rosey vocals sitting perfectly with the band’s soon-to-be-famous movie dialogue cut-ups and heavy-with-the-reverb effects treatments.
The album was nominated for the inaugural Mercury Music Prize in 1992 and has consistently appeared in critics' top 20 albums of all time ever since. Foxbase Alpha even received a complete remake by the band (complete with an alternative explanatory ‘director’s commentary’ track) as 2009’s Foxbase Beta.
Following the more pop outings of 2012’s Xenomania-produced Words and Music and 2017’s Home Counties, the band has been exploring the more ambient and dub sounds of their early work for 2021’s I’ve Been Trying To Tell You and 2024’s The Night.
New single Glad is available as a four-track EP here, being produced in a pressed-to-order gatefold card wallet with three exclusive B-sides that won’t be available in shops or on streaming platforms.
The track list for International, their forthcoming album runs as follows:
01 Glad
02 Dancing Heart
03 The Go Betweens [ft. Nick Heyward]
04 Sweet Melodies
05 Save It for a Rainy Day
06 Fade
07 Brand New Me [ft. Confidence Man]
08 Take Me to the Pilot
09 Two Lovers
10 Why Are You Calling
11 He’s Gone
12 The Last Time
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