We’re what you might call map obsessives. Tube maps, Ordnance Survey, atlases – you’re always find us studiously analysing something or other to this effect, because quite frankly we just find the way they compact so much into so little fascinating. We like to know where our little locale fits into the world.
And when it comes to a great album cover, going by our obsession, bunging a map on the front of your new LP wins you a lot of brownie points from us. So hurrah Saint Etienne, who’ve done exactly that! We were already excited for Words and Music based on the brilliant Tonight, but now we’re positively on the edge of our seat for it.
Amongst those whose eyes glaze over in ecstasy at the mere thought of certain Xenomania productions and other pop delights from the past ten years, Saint Etienne's new single Tonight will come like the embrace of a long lost friend, reunited at last.
In its dizzyingly soothing synth-spiral of electronic bliss the track marks a logical progression from the crystalline Method of Modern Love - it's intensely clever dance-pop; mature, clever, but most importantly possessed of the keen knowledge of what really, really works.
With former Xenomania man Tim Powell himself on production duties, the track shares all the beauty of some glorious Girls Aloud classic or a cut from the Pet Shop Boys stellar Yes album. Add in Sarah Cracknell's characteristically breathy vocals and Tonight sums up everything that make Saint Etienne such an enduringly wonderful part of British pop. A real gem of a track.
New York duo Argon 40 sound like something you'd find in a chemistry lab, and in a way, their music sounds very much like the product of a weird and wonderous experiment too. That said, Fair Lawn seems a particularly apt name for their album – neat, cultured and natural, the songs represent a precise achievement of distilled, clinical application to their art. It's a band knowing what they want, and getting it. The twosome - comprised of vocalist Heather Greene and Powerman 5000 member Adam Williams serve up an injection of chilly synthesizers and delicate, whispered vocals. 44.66 Days trembles organically, the instrumental expanses creeping into you like the blurry shapes in the corner of your eye. Meanwhile, the electro stomp of Stay and Bailey, Are You Dead are infused with a cold, robotic quality. It is with When the Words Don’t Come though that we see them delivering their strongest moments.
Here, pop sensibility comes to the fore with a dreamy chorus that harks back to 90s pop Queen Cathy Dennis. It’s half Bjork, half-wintery artistic soundscape. Later in the album come echoes of Portishead, Saint Etienne and even Dido on more acoustically-driven track like When I Fall. Greene’s vocals are soulful and intensely genuine; most importantly, they complement the blissful, chilled out melodies like a second skin.
You get the sense Fair Lawn, as an album, wants to present an open playing field, a blank canvas where music and listener meet in a collaborative effort to conjure up the optimum experience. And in the various floating levels of sonic wizardry on offer, this is largely achieved. Those in search of new experiences, new images of beauty will not leave disappointed with this album and as a collage of so many individual, pretty elements, Argon 40s debut effort excels at what it sets out to do.
