Saint Etienne - I've Been Trying to Tell You

 

Saint Etienne seem to be a group that improve with the years like a fine wine. With us for almost thirty years they're making their way towards small British Pop Institution status and latest album I've Been Trying to Tell You only confirms this process.

It's as different from their first records as you could possibly imagine and highlights how thoughtful Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs are about what they do and why they're doing. The new record seems most of all to be an exercise in memory and how it works.

Eight floating, drifting soundscapes recorded remotely during lockdown. Probably best experienced by a listener of a certain age for whom the band themselves have associative memories  but I would imagine it also stands alone on its own merits.

Definitely an album that needs to be listened through to in its entirity. Probably the best 'experiencing of time' record I've come across in 2021 along with the Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders collaboration Promises.