It's New to Me: So Tough by Saint Etienne (1993)

Cover photograph from Te Ao Hou, the Maori magazine, March 1968

So I bought my first Saint Etienne album - I've owned the Continental collection of non-album tracks for a while, and I love it, so it made sense to delve into their proper discography. I started with 1993's So Tough, their second album, because I think of it being their first real album as a cohesive unit, the first album having been made before singer Sarah Cracknell was actually part of the group.

So Tough impressed me immediately as an album of surprising musicianship from a group that prided itself as being fans of music rather than musicians. And it's true that the album is really a jumble of dialogue snippets, obscure samples, and field recordings shaped into the rough semblance of pop songs, but it really works. This is clearly evident from the album's opening track, the excellent "Mario's Cafe", where a playful melody is built entirely around a single perfect string sample, taken from a cover of the Temptations' "I Wish It Would Rain".

Saint Etienne's approach to composing So Tough does result in some weird sequencing, though, which makes it a hard record to get into. "Mario's Cafe" is followed by the instrumental "Railway Jam", a non-musical interlude called "Date With Spelman", and "Calico", a song which features a guest rapper, a 16-year-old girl called Q-Tee. "Railway Jam" and "Calico" would both have benefited from a lead vocal from Sarah Cracknell - the bonus disc on the So Tough re-release feature a version of "Railway Jam" with vocals called "Orpington Blues", and it's quite good. After this rough start, though, So Tough has a very strong middle section. The 7-minute single "Avenue" is a hypnotic delight with a great Pet Sounds bridge that makes sense of the titular Beach Boys reference. "You're In a Bad Way", the album's other single, is a purposefully corny throwback to '60s pop, but it is meticulously arranged and has a great chorus. The cool ballad "Hobart Paving" and the Field-Mice-esque "Leafhound" round out this section of the album. That last track is another favorite of mine - it's the only track on the record where Saint Etienne's love of '80s indie really shows through, but they nail it. It's not really a surprise, as collaborator Ian Catt had worked with the Field Mice previously - the stuttering drum-machine tambourine and acoustic strum have a real C86 vibe.

The final third of So Tough is a collage of cultural references, with snippets of Japanese and tap-dancing mixed in with a song built on a Rush sample ("Conchita Martinez") and a girl-group pastiche ("No Rainbows For Me") recorded in mono. With only nine vocal tracks, one instrumental, and five between-song "skits", So Tough looks like a "thin" album on paper, but I find it to be a surprisingly rich and rewarding listen. I picked up the 2-CD reissue, which comes with a second disc of 17 non-album tracks, which almost make a first-rate album on their own with the inclusion of great songs like "Orpington Blues", the canceled single "Everlasting", and a cover of Teenage Fanclub's "Everything Flows". I have to say "almost", though, because the bonus disc has a five-minute remix of "I'm Too Sexy" hidden toward the end, and that's a song that may never regain listenability. So... caveat emptor or something.

"Leafhound" by Saint Etienne