Saint Etienne - Like the Swallow

It's out of wild roses she made a bed. A stony pillow for her head.

Album: Foxbase Alpha [debut album]
Recorded: London
Genre: Indie Pop, Alternative Dance, House
Album Release: September 16th 1991
Length: 7:42
Producer: Saint Etienne
Vocalist: Sarah Cracknell [age 25]
Label: Heavenly Recordings

Official Audio

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: 253,000 +
YouTube Music: 35,000 +
Mercury Prize Nominee 1992 [losing to Primal Scream]

Credits

Drum machine, sampler, synthesizer

Details

• Saint Etienne make forward thinking, innovative, genre-bending music from London that encapsulates what it's like to live in a big city and slots in next to Primal Scream's - Screamadelica. Made at the start of the 90's, the record sounds nothing like the 80's. It had its sights set on the possibility of a new decade in a way that happens to acts from large urban centres. The music industry is concentrated in the capital and as such, trends that begin in the capital quickly make their way into the media and emanate out through the rest of the country and possibly the world.
  
  The instrumentation is a mix of synthesizers and samplers and the band originally intended to feature a revolving door of female vocalists but were so impressed with Sarah Cracknell's performance on 'Nothing Can Stop Us' that she became a full time member. Certain tracks on 'Foxbase Alpha' were made under the revolving vocalist model and don't feature Cracknell, including the lead single 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart'.
  
  Saint Etienne's work also mixes spoken word sections with singing which creates a dream-like effect of life happening around you, as opposed to a person being a driving force at the centre of the universe. This mimics how it feels to live in a metropolis, standing still as the waves of people pass by.
  
  
• Saint Etienne are of the alternative dance tradition that emerged in the MDMA fuelled British nightclubs of the late 80's and was called the Second of Summer of Love. However, Saint Etienne's sound was also a progression of the genre into the introspective nature of time after the music stops. The party has to end eventually, and while the acid house influence is present it's mixed with sixties pop, dub music and stronger, C86 influenced songwriting.
  
  
• Records in the alternative dance genre would frequently be made to replicate the experience of taking drugs, complete with the euphoric highs and mellow lows that would entail. 'Like the Swallow' is the comedown on 'Foxbase Alpha' and starts with a long, ambient instrumental section that changes into a more traditional song halfway through only to descend back down.
  
  
• The London band are named after the French city Saint Etienne, which shows the well-travelled, cultured, metropolitan outlook of the band
  
  
• Before forming the band Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs worked as music journalists, writing for fanzines in their local area.
• In the 90's, British music magazines like NME and Melody Maker loved Saint Etienne but their status as critical darlings didn't translate into mainstream commercial success.
  
  
• "As for the state of British pop, I think we need more tack and more glamour. Less scruffy, dirty bands. It's very sad when a band like 4 Non-Blondes who are very incredibly boring and non-glamorous can get in the top 10. There's not enough bands on Top of the Pops with real images, who do camp dance routines and wear matching outfits." [Sarah Cracknell talking to Melody Maker in 1993]

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