“Recording the last track on the album made us all cry and crying while singing was a bit tricky,” laughs Saint Etienne vocalist Sarah Cracknell. “But that’s when it really hit us that this was the end.”
Saint Etienne have been a fixture in leftfield pop circles for decades but have announced that their next album, International, due for release this September, will be their final one together.
The group started out in 1990 when Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs released their classic cover of Neil Young’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart, Sarah Cracknell joined for their third single Nothing Can Stop Us and the 1991 album Foxbase Alpha.
Since then, the trio have pushed forward on a seemingly endlessly creative journey, spanning albums, soundtracks, radio shows, books, side-projects, collaborations, DJ sets, compilations and more.
Their collective mojo has led them down multiple paths with a huge catalogue of music befitting of pop scholars whose artistry has swayed between post-rave balearic classics to beautifully crafted chart hits.
When we talk to Pete and Sarah, the former is full of stories from a Glastonbury weekend while the latter spends a good five minutes mocking him for taking a tumble on the farm; the strength of their friendship alongside their entanglement in many of electronic pop’s finest moments runs right through their conversation.
“When we announced that this was going to be our last album, we were kind of joking about being sad about it,” Pete laughs. “Then some of the messages we’ve received on social media have been very moving, it’s amazing to think we’ve had a positive effect on people with our music. Stories about weddings, birthdays … it’s crazy to think something you’ve done has brought joy around the world and soundtracked people’s lives.”
International
The band’s new album International is their thirteenth and follows The Night, released in November 2024, a nocturnal ambient record that garnered some of the best reviews of the group’s career.
Much of International was made at the same time but has a distinctly different sonic flavour. Rather than an epitaph, this sounds like a celebration of Saint Etienne’s career with a brilliant cast of characters – Erol Alkan features on Sweet Melodies, Vince Clarke on Two Lovers, Nick Heyward on The Go Betweens, Orbital’s Paul Hartnoll on Take Me To The Pilot while Tim Powell of Xenomania is all over the album.
“We were still working on the last record while we were writing this one,” says Sarah. “At one point, we were considering releasing both albums in the same week.”
“It would have possibly been too much news,” deadpans Pete. “Two albums – and we’re breaking up!”
It was the track with synth-pop legend Vince Clark that originally sparked the energy surrounding this latest song collection. Initially, plans were to make an EP but the tracks – Two Lovers and Indigo – spurred them on to contemplate a full record.
“We ended up thinking it would be great to do a whole album of collaborations,” Pete explains. “The first person we thought of was Tim Powell who we’ve worked with a lot.
“We went into a studio with him, did some backing tracks which turned out really well, then we thought we’d ask more people to contribute. But Tim was an important co-producer, he’s across lots of the music and gives the record a sense of cohesion.”
Collaborators
Many of the guests on the album came from the friends and fans they’ve picked up on their journey over the years. When they made the requests for collaborations, the timing also seemed almost eerily prescient.
“We got really lucky,” says Sarah. “Erol Alkan was among one of the first people who we managed to get involved with. Bob approached him and Erol said he had an idea for a track that always made him think of us.
“Then we went to Tom from the Chemical Brothers and he said the same thing, he’d been working on a track with Jez Williams from Doves, it was like the stars had aligned.”
Saint Etienne’s creative process has evolved down the years. While there have been stints living together in various cities, all three are now based in different parts of the country. Their approach in the studio was informed by their fandom, inspired by whatever records they’d recently fallen in love with, or even heard on the radio en route to wherever they were working.
“We’d use tracks as references, so if we really liked the structure of something, we’d analyse it, work out how the exciting bits fit together, then try to make our own version,” says Pete.
Their closeness as friends also means they are comfortable enough to lean on each other for inspiration. If the well of inspiration runs dry, they pass the creative baton between them.
“We’ve got no problem with reaching out and admitting that we can’t think of a chorus melody,” says Sarah. “I might really need some help on the second verse with some lyrics, so it is very collaborative, there’s nothing like – ‘that’s my song, you can’t do this to it’.”
“When we’re working on something, perhaps we have a backing track that someone has written or given us, we need a vocal or top line lyric ideas,” Pete explains. ”We might all have a stab at it, then choose the best bits, and bring them together. It does go back and forth sometimes.”
International was recorded between Gus Bousfield's studio in Bradford and Tim Powell's in Hove as well as involving Pete’s home set-up too. Aside from the work with Tim, all of the collaborations were created remotely.
“That’s how it has ended up,” says Sarah. “In the early days, we’d do a lot of writing in the studio, which is an expensive way to make a record. There aren’t those budgets any more. But now, we’re in different parts of the country, we have to come up with ideas, share them, talk about them. Still, it’s always the best when we finally get together in the studio.”
Saint Etienne in the studio
Of course, studio gear has played a decisive role in shaping Saint Etienne’s electronic sound and this record sees the trio utilizing an array of production tricks to enhance their tracks.
Pete works mainly in-the-box due to space restrictions in his home but deployed a number of tools to help bring his ideas to life. He cites co-producer Tim’s Dreadbox Murmux synth as an important element alongside text-to-voice apps used to write vocal lines and lyrics.
“The Murmux sounds amazing, it’s behind the bassline on Dancing Heart and the ABBA-esque synth lines on The Go Betweens,” he explains. “I’m mainly in-the-box due to how my room is the size of a box and the text-to-voice apps are great for me too.”
Previously, Pete used Emvoice but has since switched up to ACE Studio to help lay down guide melodies – as a self-confessed non-singer, this can be an invaluable way of pairing his track with vocal lines.
“I was working on a soundtrack that needed Spanish lyrics,” Pete explains. “If you can’t sing and want to work out what a line or melody might sound like with a different voice, it’s very useful. Also, a lyric written down can work really well but when scanning sometimes sounds a bit strange, you find you might have to stretch a syllable.”
Plugins are also an endless source of studio inspiration with Spectrasonics Omnisphere, CableGuys Shaperbox and dearVR PRO 2 from Dear Reality among his current favourites.
“I’ve always got an eye on new plugins to help creativity,” Pete says. “I’d had Omnisphere for years and I use it quite a lot but I never really knew what all the bells and whistles did.
“There’s something nice about plugging in your own sounds, no-one else has used them, especially if you have a sample which is yourself or something weird – I like to do that, it can spur off so much inspiration.”
Technology is clearly advancing at a rapid rate with new tricks, platforms and software available to producers and creatives to add to their armoury. AI is dominating conversations within the music tech world, a trend that Saint Etienne are aware of.
“You have to embrace it and accept that,” says Sarah. “You can’t stop tech progressing and you shouldn’t try. You also still have to have great taste to use AI wisely and get the most out of it.”
“I’m sure there will be lots of times when instead of asking people to write music for an advert, people will just ask AI,” says Pete. “But it has its uses, for example I've not dived into Scaler 3 fully yet, but I know it’s great for storing chord sets for soundtrack cues and quickly trying out transpositions/voicings and substitute chords. You can bring it into any project you’re doing. I see it as a shortcut rather than a replacement, it’s a great tool to help me further embrace what I’m doing.”
For the Last Time
Saint Etienne went into the studio knowing that International would be their last album as a trio, which meant the recording process was charged with emotion.
“It was a good feeling, although we felt quite a lot of pressure to make it stand out and finish on a real high,” says Sarah. “We wanted to make it a bit of a party album, as upbeat as possible and I found it to be really great fun to write and record. We went all out and looked to incorporate everything we’ve done over the years, all the different styles and songwriting approaches.”
Last Time, the closing track on International is a tear jerker, reflecting on where they’ve been as Saint Etienne and who they’ve become over three and a half decades. It’s also a way of saying goodbye to their fans.
“Looking back, it does feel enormous, I’m just immensely proud of everything we’ve done over the years.”
“When it comes to the track, it was also the final song we recorded for the album – it had a lighthearted lyric but sounds quite poignant,” says Pete.
“Bob asked if we had any ideas, and I found these soundtrack sketches that I had started and thought the chords might work. I used a load of Loopcloud samples so it could sound a bit different, it kept morphing and changing.
“Then we wrote a melody, changed the sound again and again. I liked the way the track came from a very slapdash approach to become one of our favourite songs on the album.”
With the latest record their thirteenth alongside myriad soundtracks and compilations, the group has amassed a colossal body of work. Despite arriving ahead of Britpop, the band’s creativity has been restless, always continuing to change and shift.
“Looking back, it does feel enormous, I’m just immensely proud of everything we’ve done over the years,” says Sarah. “We’ve made records that are all quite different to each other – a lot of that is to do with the fact we’re not a drums-bass-two-guitar band – which means we’ve been able to explore many genres and sounds.”
“Each record is like a different era of your life,” says Pete. “It’s a bit like looking through a photograph album, it takes you back when you hear something and you remember the tour you did around it and various things that happened to you then.”
Back to the beginning
The band’s debut album Foxbase Alpha was released in 1991 and propelled the band into the limelight including a Mercury Prize nomination the following year. With neither Pete or Bob Stanley having musical backgrounds or being proficient in playing any instruments, it was the cultural awakening of house music that inspired them to experiment with production.
“It was a combination of house music and hip hop that spurred us on, hearing tracks that featured samples and sequencers that weren't only available in super high end studios,” says Pete.
Meeting Ian Catts, who ran a small studio and would go on to become their in-house engineer, was also a pivotal moment. The fledgling Saint Etienne had no gear of their own, instead relying on Ian.
They utilised a Korg M1, an EMU Emax HD with 512kb of RAM while the piano sound of Only Love Can Break Your Heart came via an Emax Grand Piano with built in chorus on. They also used an Akai S1000, Sequential Circuits Pro One and Yamaha Rev-7 reverb among other items Ian owned.
The initial recording, made in under two hours, landed them a record deal, their first single, and a hit. It also led to a remix from the legendary DJ Andrew Weatherall.
“Jeff Barrett who ran Heavenly was really good friends with Andrew, and Bob's girlfriend at the time Celina (who's on the cover of Foxbase Alpha) grew up in Windsor hanging out with the Boy's Own crew,” he says. “We were big fans and Jeff played him the track and he was really into it.”
Their process has evolved over the years across the band’s many albums. The trio has worked with an array of different producers, writers and end engineers, an approach encapsulated in International.
“I think the main change is that we tend to start songs off independently and bring our homework to the table,” says Pete of the evolution of their creative approach. “We're not always all in the studio at the same time but send things back and forth over the internet including lyric and melody ideas via voice notes and more.”
Beyond Saint Etienne
Friendship is at the core of Saint Etienne and partly why they’ve managed to maintain the group over the decades. With only live gigs after the album’s September 2025 release in the diary, their connection is something they will be looking to focus on in the future.
“We’re looking to do some gigs next year, all the hits – so that’s for me the last thing I’m thinking of – after that, I don’t know,” says Sarah. “We’re going to hang out as friends more instead of work stuff, which will be really nice.”
Pete sees the secret to their longevity as the variety of projects they’ve worked on. They’ve also been to step away from Saint Etienne to focus on other endeavours.
“We never became so famous that we hated each other or fell out,” says Pete. “We stayed on indie labels, there’s been space for us to do other things, other creative projects. If you’re together just doing the same thing all the time, then maybe you don’t have your own space to be creative.”
With each album, the band have set themselves a brief, to limit where they can work and the sound they’ve aimed for. This is their advice for bands and creators, you have to find inventive ways to make things happen.
“It’s a bit like a menu with too much stuff on it – what am I going to eat?” says Sarah. “For us, we need the sonic equivalent of ‘we’re going to an Italian restaurant and it’s pizza and pasta, and that’s it’.”
“We often imagine if that person did a different genre, what would that sound like,” continues Pete. “Our music always ends up sounding like Saint Etienne through our shared aesthetic and Sarah’s voice obviously too.”
“It’s always down to the use of melancholy too,” says Sarah on the thread joining the sounds of their discography, including International. “It’s always been such a Saint Etienne thing.”
Saint Etienne – International is due for release on 5th September.
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