Tell Me A Thousand Times

Happy, happy, happy birthday to Sarah Cracknell, born 12th April 1967.

Chanteuse, songwriter, mother, wife and all round fabulous person, today's selection celebrates Sarah's 58th with 58 minutes of Sarah singing. What could be better than that?

It's mostly Saint Etienne, with a couple of songs from Sarah's solo catalogue and collaborations with David Holmes and Mark Brown. 

There are also mixes from Masters At Work, Kid Loco, Richard X, Two Lone Swordsmen aka Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood, as well as Andrew's former compadres in The Sabres Of Paradise, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns. All very different styles and approaches, though Sarah's voice shines through.

Here's to you, Sarah, hiope you have a good one.

1) Aussie Soap Girl: Sarah Cracknell (1997)

2) Method Of Modern Love (Radio Edit By Richard X & Pete Hofmann): Saint Etienne (2009)

3) Nothing Can Stop Us (Masters At Work Dub) (Remix By Kenny 'Dope' Gonzalez & 'Little' Louie Vega): Saint Etienne (1992)

4) Goodnight Jack: Saint Etienne (1998)

5) Message In A Bottle: Saint Etienne (1995)

6) Stop And Think It Over (Kid Loco Mix): Saint Etienne (2002)

7) Penlop (Album Version By Pete Wiggs): Saint Etienne (2021)

8) Some Place Else: Saint Etienne (1992)

9) Gone (Edit By David Holmes, Jagz Kooner & Gary Burns): David Holmes ft. Sarah Cracknell (1995)

10) I Threw It All Away: Saint Etienne (2012)

11) Sleepytown: Sarah Cracknell (2015)

12) Like A Motorway (Japanese Version): Saint Etienne (1994)

13) The Journey Continues (Vocal Radio Edit): Mark Brown ft. Sarah Cracknell (2007)

14) Andersen Unbound: Saint Etienne (2002)

15) Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Two Lone Swordsmen Mix By Andrew Weatherall & Keith Tenniswood): Saint Etienne (2000)

1992: Avenue EP: 8

1992: Nothing Can Stop Us EP: 3

1995: Gone EP: 9

1995: Xmas 95 EP: 5

1997: Goldie EP: 1

1998: Good Humor: 4

2000: Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) EP: 15

2002: Action EP: 14

2007: The Journey Continues EP: 13

2009: Method Of Modern Love EP: 2

2009: Now 4 EP: 12

2010: Finisterre (Deluxe Edition) (2x CD): 6

2012: Words And Music By Saint Etienne: 10

2015: Take The Silver EP: 11

2021: I've Been Trying To Tell You: 7

Tell Me A Thousand Times (58:22) (KF) (Mega)

If that's left you hungry for more Sarah, I've resurrected my 1997 Saint Etienne C90 side which I posted last year. You can find it here.

Non Et Non? Oui, Anon!

An eighty minute French electro dance mix to soundtrack your Olympic weekend, as requested by Anonymous on Tuesday. 

To mix my metaphors, when Anon made this comment, it became an itch I had to scratch and I ended up going down a rabbit hole. But it was so much fun! So much so, that I've spent so much time deciding on the tracks and stitching them together that I've basically run out of time to write about it...!

Anyhoo, from my initial thought that I might not have much to play with, the reality is that I seem to have tonnes of the stuff. to the extent that I've had to leave out several artists that I like, such as The Hacker, i:Cube, Le Knight Club and Rone because I didn't have the room.

From a ridiculously long long list, I had to impose further rules to help me whittle it down to a CD-R friendly size. 

 

So, first of all, the artists all had to be French passport carriers, so that cut out Francophiles such as Classixx (sorry, Anon!) or Aeroplane.

Secondly, if I was choosing a remix - which ended up accounting for most of this playlist - it also had to be by a French artist. Great though they are, remixes by Justin Robertson, Adrian Sherwood or even chancers like Les Rythmes Digitales aka Jacques Lu Cont (Stuart Price to his mum) had to go.

Thirdly... well, that was enough to go on actually and what I ended up with is a 16-track selection that I think hangs together pretty well.

There are loads of familiar names, as per Anon's list: Daft Punk, M83, Justice, Air, Étienne De Crécy; others such as Miss Kittin, Fred Falke, Château Flight, Sébastien Tellier, Kid Loco and Cassius. 

 

Some might be less familiar: La Horse (Ivan Smagghe & Julien Brambilla), Para One (Jean-Baptiste De Laubier), Dombrance (Bertrand Lacombe) and Donovan (David Saïd & Nicolas Nekmouche); all worth checking out in their own right.

Unfortunately, my tardiness with this post means that I've blown any chance of getting a look in with Rol's Saturday Snapshots over at My Top Ten. I'll be lucky to get a certificate of attendance, let alone a bronze medal...!

 

1) Sexual Sportswear (Donovan Remix): Sébastien Tellier (2010)

2) D.A.N.C.E. (Alan Braxe & Fred Falke Remix): Justice (2008)

3) Sexy Boy (Étienne De Crécy Et Les Flowers Pistols Remix): AIR (1998)

4) Hypercommunication (Joakim Cartoon Muscles Remix): Poni Hoax (2008)

5) Midnight City (Team Ghost Remix): M83 (2011) 

6) Les Antipodes (Joakim Remix): Château Flight & Bertrand Burgalat (2004)

7) Saké (Blackjoy Version): Jupiter (2011)

8) Maneki Neko (Château Marmont Remix): Miss Kittin (2013)

9) Tom Select (La Horse Remix): Discodeine (2009)

10) Patterns (Mondkopf Remix): Villeneuve (2009)

11) Gorgeous (Dombrance Remix): Yuksek ft. Confidence Man (2020)

12) Spinach Girl (The Family Remix By Villeneuve): Agoria ft. Sylvie Marks & Kofea (2003)

13) Prix Choc (Ultra Dark Mix): Étienne De Crécy (1998)

14) She's My Lover (A Revolution Sitting Stoned In A Field - Remix Edit): Kid Loco (1997)

15) Prime Time Of Your Life (Para One Remix): Daft Punk (2005)

16) Feeling For You (Edit): Cassius (1999)

 

1998: A Grand Love Story: 14

1998: Prix Choc EP: 13

1998: Sexy Boy EP: 3 

1999: Feeling For You EP: 16

2003: Spinach Girl EP: 12

2004: Les Antipodes Versions Speciales EP: 6 

2006: Human After All: Remixes: 15 

2008: D.A.N.C.E. EP: 2 

2008: Hypercommunication EP: 4

2009: Death Race EP: 10

2009: Sexuality Remix: 1

2009: Tom Select EP: 9

2011: Midnight City Remix EP: 5

2011: Saké EP: 7

2013: Maneki Neko EP: 8

2020: Nosso Ritmo EP: 11

 

Non Et Non? Oui, Anon! (1:20:25) (KF) (Mega)

Still Watching, Yet Not Wanting

Side 1 of a cassette compilation, compiled 8th August 1998. If Side 2 stretched the C90 capacity to it's limit, Side 1 must surely have snapped the tape...

Your ride begins with Trust by Money Mark, from his 1998 album Push The Button. I knew of Money Mark from his association with Beastie Boys but this record saw him veering into - in my mind, at least - Elton John territory at times. Though thankfully by that I mean Elton's imperial 1970s phase, not the then-contemporary Something About The Way You Look Tonight/Candle in the Wind 1997, which remains the all-time best-selling single in the UK. Money Mark's track is building, rabble-rousing instrumental, much more in keeping with what follows.

 

Barry Adamson versus Skylab, Kid Loco taking on both Pulp and Saint Etienne. I previously described the mixtape as "dirty, downtempo beats" and this was very much the style du jour in the late 1990s.  

 

Theo Keating continues to release music as Fake Blood but when I recorded this cassette, he'd released a single called Ooh La La as The Wiseguys. It entered - and peaked - the UK chart at #55. The song's subsequent use in a Budweiser commercial saw it released a year later in June 1999, where it did rather better, entering at #2 and spending 5 weeks in the Top 30. His remix of Desire by Mulu is really good but had little positive impact on it's own chart placing, managing just 1 week at #84 in November 1997. 

 

My introduction to Trembling Blue Stars came by my jangly indie music-loving girlfriend, who was a big fan of The Field Mice and followed Bobby Wratten's subsequent band. I'm very glad she did. I'm only familiar with Trembling Blue Stars' two albums from the 1990s (there were two more before they disbanded in 2010) and they're both things of understated beauty. The Rainbow was released as a single and really shines in it's longer (album) version.

 

A small confession #1. The original cassette featured an alternative mix of A Little Soul by Pulp, from the CD single. I haven't unearthed and uploaded the shiny disc, so swapped it out for the Kid Loco. It's to blame for the ridiculous running time though I think the segue into Desire by Mulu works better than the original sequence.

 

A small confession #2. This is the second appearance of The Box (Part Four) by Orbital, following a previous appearance in my Boxing Day selection in December 2021. However, as the link for that one is long dead, I'm glad to represent the song here.

Also making a second appearance on this mixtape is Justin Warfield. On Side 1, he's hiding in plain sight as One Inch Punch; here, he's a guest of Cornershop. 

Moby ups the ante with a remix of Honey, his 'comeback' single in 1998 following his thrash metal phase. I've not counted, but I'm assuming the 118 in the mix title refers to the beats per minute. Try making a cup of tea whilst dancing to this one and not making a complete mess. Maybe that's not what Moby intended.

Bringing things to a close is Leila with a track from her astonishing debut Like Weather. It's typical of the album as a whole: beautiful, simple yet stirring chords and synth washes with moments that push the needle way into the red, just in case you were getting complacent.

I'll sign off with an apology to Walter at the excellent A Few Good Times In My Life blog. He left some very kind comments on my original post in April 2022, to which I replied, "I'll try not to leave it too long before posting Side One...!" I think at a little over ten months later, it's fair to say I tried and failed. Sorry, Walter, I hope it was worth the wait...

 

1) Trust: Money Mark (1998)

2) What It Means (Skylab A Smokin' Japanese We're Chicken In Moss Side Mix): Barry Adamson (1998)

3) A Little Soul (Lafayette Velvet Revisited Mix By Kid Loco): Pulp (1998)

4) Desire (Wiseguys Remix By DJ Touché aka Theo Keating): Mulu (1997)

5) 4.35 In The Morning (Talkin' Blues Mix By Kid Loco): Saint Etienne (1998)

6) The Rainbow (Long Version): Trembling Blue Stars (1998)

7) The Box (Part Four) (Vocal Reprise): Orbital ft. Grant Fulton & Alison Goldfrapp (1996)

8) Candyman: Cornershop ft. Justin Warfield (1997)

9) Honey (118 Mix): Moby (1998)

10) Piano-String: Leila (1998)

 

Side One (47:37) (Box) (Mega)

Side Two here

Trying To Make Sense Of My Life

Sometimes Saint Etienne say it all in a song title.

It was still light at 4.35 this morning and hotter indoors than out. I'm working from home today and already longing for bed and a decent night's sleep.

 

Carnt Sleep (Foxbase Alpha Version): Saint Etienne (1991)

Carnt Sleep (Foxbase Beta Version): Saint Etienne (2009)

4.35 In The Morning (Talkin' Blues Mix By Kid Loco): Saint Etienne (1998)