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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
‘We want to stop in our prime': Saint Etienne on their final album and why pop is a dying art
In St Etienne , it is usually Bob Stanley who suggests the band's tightly defined album concepts. What if you graft folk melodies to dance music ? Make vaporwave about early New Labour? While finishing ambient pop album The Night, released in the dark of last winter, Stanley pitched an even starker one for its successor: the end of their band. 'I didn't think I was saying anything uncomfortable or shocking,' says Stanley, affable and understated, in a park near his Bradford home. 'When you've known each other for so long you have a psychic thing anyway. It felt like we would all agree.' I meet Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell in a London bar, separate from Stanley – no falling out, they assure me, simply living as they do across Yorkshire, East Sussex and Oxfordshire is a scheduling nightmare. Wiggs couches his thoughts about Stanley's proposition carefully. 'Once I got used to it, I thought it was a great idea. We've not split up acrimoniously, and have some control over it.' International, out in September, will be the final St Etienne album. Bringing together collaborators including Nick Heyward, Xenomania, Erol Alkan and the Chemical Brothers – who appear on the fizzing and life-affirming new single Glad – the album is a strictly-bangers leaving party for one of the most singular bands in British indie. Few albums are likely to contain rave hedonists Confidence Man and severe cult broadcaster Jonathan Meades, who provides text for the album's sleeve. 'I wanted to finish our album journey on a high,' says Cracknell. 'Do something really special and stop in our prime.' READ MORE Saint Etienne: Bob Stanley, Sarah Cracknell and Pete Wiggs. Photograph: Paul Kelly Stanley remembers a time in pop when most groups did finish, powering pop's forward motion. He argues that it has slowed, pointing to the decade it took for the hyperpop music on the PC Music record label – which he adored – to reach the mainstream on Charli XCX 's Brat last year. That type of underground-to-overground travel 'used to happen all the time, and it would take 18 months', says Stanley. Pop is 'clearly nowhere near as important as it used to be – we might as well be talking about jazz or modern classical, where there's great music but it's not really adding much [to culture]. But music wasn't that important before the 1920s, either.' Like St Etienne themselves, 'these things don't last forever'. What about the current crop of exciting women pop stars? Stanley praises 'the look, the sound, the artwork' of the 'properly great' Charli, Lana Del Rey and Sabrina Carpenter . But he maintains that 'music's just not as central to people's identities' as it was. If that sounds like a controversial position, he has others. 'I hate Glastonbury ,' he says. 'Can't stand it. A single setting for all kinds of music feels entirely wrong to me.' Stanley has always been opinionated about music. 'I loved Grease,' remembers Wiggs of his early teens growing up alongside Stanley in Croydon. 'Even then, Bob was telling me it was nothing on the original 50s stuff.' Later, the pair set up fanzines Pop Avalanche and Caff, but the indie music they covered became 'very dreary', Stanley says. 'When house and techno came along it was like, 'Oh, this is it.'' [ Forbidden Fruit 2025: daily line-ups, stage times, ticket information, weather forecast and more Opens in new window ] Neither of them were musicians, but radical, sample-heavy singles by UK producers Bomb the Bass and S'Express convinced them they didn't need to be. Though Wiggs later studied for a film music degree, Stanley wears his inability to play an instrument as 'an asset' – if he could play Chopin, he argues, his instincts as a pop fan might have diminished. Composer and orchestrator David Whitaker, who worked on their 1994 album Tiger Bay, saw his potential and offered him piano lessons. 'Lovely bloke,' remembers Stanley, 'but I was like, I really actually think I don't want to learn.' Besides, 'nobody ever asks Pet Shop Boys if they can play the piano'. Sarah Cracknell of St Etienne performing in London in 2016. Photograph: Robin Little/Redferns Learning songwriting on the job meant that their first single was a cover. Only Love Can Break Your Heart was a thrilling land-grab of Neil Young 's 1970 original, at once faster and slower with brisk house pianos and languid dub reggae. The pair's plan was to have rotating singers, in that case indie singer Moira Lambert, and down the pub they casually signed to friend Jeff Barrett's new Heavenly Recordings, who released the single in May 1990. Cracknell heard the single and loved it. Born to a showbiz Windsor family (her mother, Julie Samuel, was an Avengers star, her father, Derek Cracknell, Kubrick's recurring first assistant director), teenage Cracknell was galvanised by indie band Felt's shambling melancholy and spent the 1980s 'getting close to a record deal' with various bands. But she had given up, and was enrolled in drama school when Stanley's girlfriend suggested her for a featured vocal. 'I liked that she didn't sing with an American accent,' says Stanley of his first impressions, 'which then was unusual.' The producer who mixed the track, Brian Higgins, offered them a demo that they turned down: it became Believe by Cher. 'We'd probably be living in solid gold houses now,' says Stanley. But what attracted Cracknell to them? 'They had the 1960s, dance music and melancholy,' she smiles. Stanley and Wiggs asked Cracknell to become the group's sole, permanent singer, and the newly minted trio recorded debut Foxbase Alpha in the Mitcham council house of producer Ian Catt's parents. Using samples from bygone British pop and TV – there were too many legal challenges to US samples at the time – the album was powered by a tension between pop's past and present that would become a very St Etienne mix, packed with shout-outs to the city they had just moved to. 'I was always scared of London, growing up in Croydon,' says Stanley, who remembers marvelling over exotic neighbourhood names such as Shacklewell and Haggerston. 'This was when all the districts were very different from each other.' The trio explored London through its Irish pubs and Portuguese cafes, 'pie and mash shops, old London things'. That geography was all over their 1993 masterpiece So Tough, with trip-hop and wide-eyed symphonic pop bathed in bright echo – as if recalling a radio show from last night's dream. [ The Music Quiz: Which Queen song recently broke one billion streams on Spotify? Opens in new window ] They argue that they used success to do what pop fans, rather than what Stanley views as their more tribal indie peers, would prioritise, like releasing a Christmas single or wearing gold lamé suits on the telly. 'We were all quite hedonistic,' Cracknell says of those years, 'but maybe that's why we stayed together? We used to go out to clubs a lot.' This led to remixes by Andrew Weatherall and Autechre. 'We went to watch Bonfire Night fireworks in Highbury with Aphex Twin,' remembers Stanley, after visiting the elusive producer at his flat to commission a remix. Despite inviting a nascent Oasis to support them – Stanley had met Noel Gallagher as a roadie, and they all loved the band's Live Forever demo – they avoided being dubbed Britpop, which Stanley today terms 'nationalistic' and 'the absolute antithesis' of their project. The pounding Eurodance of 1995's He's On the Phone protested against that era's guitars, and became their biggest hit. The producer who mixed the track, Brian Higgins, offered them a demo that they turned down: it became Believe by Cher . 'We'd probably be living in solid gold houses now,' says Stanley. Recording International was low on drama – 'because we're English', says Stanley – until final song The Last Time, written as a farewell to each other and their loyal audience Reinventing for Y2K, they decamped to Berlin with glitchy electronic trio To Rococo Rot, who teased them about indulgences such as changing chords. They dialled down the bleeps and thuds of the city's club scene, resulting in their subtle and slept-on album Sound of Water. Its second single, Heart Failed, bitterly surveyed New Labour Britain and its market-driven urban regeneration: 'Sold the ground to a PLC / Moved the club out to Newbury / Sod the fans and their families.' That flattened culture was explored again in the 2005 documentary St Etienne made with film-maker Paul Kelly about East London's desolate Lower Lea Valley before it disappeared to Olympic development. Throughout their career, Stanley is proud that St Etienne got 'no bigger or smaller' in the size of venues they played, and cites Bob Dylan and Prince as role models for staying true to oneself. They all credit their decision to swear off long tours as key to longevity. 'How the hell do people do this?' Stanley remembers thinking after even a relatively brisk jaunt. 'That, and we've all got complimentary personalities,' says Wiggs. 'No horrific egos,' agrees Cracknell. More recently, 2021's I've Been Trying to Tell You used the melancholic vaporwave genre to examine late-90s nostalgia (they were disappointed that no one worked out that its track names were all horses that won on the day of Labour's 1997 landslide). By the time of The Night, Stanley was suffering sleepless nights raising a small child while Wiggs and Cracknell were fretting about older children leaving home. The drizzly, downbeat album contained spoken word from Cracknell mourning the 'energy and belief' of their 20s and was provisionally titled Tired Dad. They were 'talking to people of a similar vintage to us, and being honest about it', says Wiggs. Recording International was low on drama – 'because we're English', says Stanley – until final song The Last Time, written as a farewell to each other and their loyal audience. 'I found it very difficult to get through singing it without crying,' says Cracknell, whose confiding and soulful vocals have arguably been St Etienne's greatest asset. 'It was the last song we recorded for the album, and the realisation really hit me.' Outside the project that has consumed them for three decades, Wiggs is working on a film soundtrack, Stanley is writing more books (he has already written two door-stopping histories of pop music), and the two will continue their celebrated archival pop compilations for reissue label Ace Records. Cracknell winces that she has 'not thought past the end of 2025', which makes her anxious. Is there a risk their end might not be permanent? 'I don't think there is,' says Stanley, who is looking forward to meeting his bandmates and their families without talking shop. Wiggs and Cracknell's kids are, they tell me proudly, 'like cousins'. Cracknell, an only child, was 'always collecting siblings' – until St Etienne. Asked what she is most proud of, it is not their 13 albums or Top of the Pops appearances, but their friendship. 'That we have such a bond between the three of us,' she says, looking out now to the bar's exit. 'And that will never go.' – The Guardian International by St Etienne will be released by Heavenly Recordings in September.
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Cloud Control review – Australian 2010s indie darlings reunite for a joyfully nostalgic tour
'We've been on a real nostalgia bender in the lead-up to this,' Heidi Lenffer tells a sold-out Northcote theatre. She and her band, Cloud Control, are not alone in that. Anyone who was interested in Australian indie music in the 2010s probably came across the Blue Mountains quartet: Lenffer on keys, percussion and vocals, her brother Ulrich on drums and backing vocals, Jeremy Kelshaw on bass and backing vocals, and Alister Wright on guitar and vocals. For almost a decade they were darlings of the scene, releasing three albums, supporting big-ticket international bands including Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend, living overseas for a spell, even having a song on the Magic Mike soundtrack. Then, at the end of 2018, they went dark. So to attend a Cloud Control show in 2025 feels like a trip back in time – founding bassist Kelshaw, who left the band in 2015, returns for this tour, too. It's a homecoming for good reason: it's been 15 years since they released their Australian Music prize-winning debut Bliss Release and, as is the way of the nostalgia tour, they're playing it front to back. Cloud Control's musical evolution was fascinating to follow. Bliss Release has undeniable hints of the 'stomp clap hey' style of music that was ubiquitous at the time: hand claps, tambourines, whoops, sweet boy-girl harmonies. It's a sound that became a cliche but Cloud Control offset some of the genre's more twee aspects with esoteric lyricism and whip-smart songwriting. Their subsequent albums, 2013's Dream Cave and 2017's Zone, each stepped further into experimentalism, flirting with psychedelia and even electronica. The songs were always buoyed by the excellent vocal duo of Heidi Lenffer and Wright. On the night, Bliss Release is sandwiched between two mini-sets of songs from the latter albums. It perhaps would have made a little more sense to start from the beginning, so that trajectory and development would be more evident in real time. But their sound is instantly transportive. The band is incredibly tight and there's no hint that it's been years since they've played together. The Pavement-esque fuzz of Rainbow City sounds great live, with almost shouted lyrics melting into harmony – a gorgeous contrast of textures. There is a certain charming naivety, or earnestness, to Bliss Release now – both in comparison with the band's later albums and with age. But they inhabit it with joy and that same precision, with a dash of ramshackle energy. Wright constantly bounces around the stage and, as they often did back in the day, they insert a rapped verse from the Butthole Surfers' Pepper into one of their earliest singles, the hymn-like Gold Canary. There are subtle changes in instrumentation: on the haunting Ghost Story, Kelshaw puts the bass down to tap drumsticks against a guitar case for an extra layer of percussion, and the sunny This Is What I Said has a hint of distortion this time. Some things remain the same, including Kelshaw's leaping basslines and the band's signature use of vocals as harmoniser, instrument and percussion. The effect is often mesmerising, as it always was. The slower points of the album, such as the acoustic Hollow Drums, slightly drop the energy – but, as Wright says, 'We're playing by the rules.' It's a chance for his strong vocals to be front and centre, as is Just for Now, which has some of his most beautiful harmonies with Lenffer. When they dip into the rest of their back catalogue, Cloud Control's sound immediately becomes more cavernous and expansive. The euphoric Scar is a highlight, with vocals soaring above busy keys. There's a false start for the synthy Treetops but, once it's rolling, it's Lenffer's moment to shine – and she does. The night is capped with the title track from Dream Cave, in which Wright's vocals are loud and raw, cracking with emotion. It all feels like a celebration of one of Australia's finest bands – a belated victory lap. The members of Cloud Control have their own projects now, musical and otherwise (Lenffer gives a shout-out to her fellow parents of kids under five). But this is where it all began and the music is evergreen. It feels lovely to return to it in the live space – even if it's just for now. Cloud Control are performing Bliss Release in Margaret River on 6 June, Fremantle on 7 June, Morton, NSW, on 14 June and Sydney on 20 June
ABC News
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
A walk down memory lane with Nesia Daily's Michael Chow
You hear him every morning on Radio Australia, and every week as the opening voice of On The Record - but how much do you know about Michael Chow's music career? In 2012, Michael formed Froyo, a band with his university friend, Allyson Montenegro; a group which would soon grow into a popular mainstay of the Sydney indie scene. While it started as a bit of a musical accident, Froyo's music was the real deal: pop music that had a diverse range of influences at its core, Michael and his bandmates navigated their way through songs that had a tinge of '80s teen drama threaded throughout. Loading Froyo's music has been heard on Netflix and HBO shows, while the impact of the band has been felt through a strong community of fans who have committed to the music via tattoos, various shows around Australia and more. Though Michael is very much at home in his Nesia Daily presenter's seat, he joins On The Record for a special walk down memory lane.
Daily Mail
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Hollywood's latest nepo baby roasted by scathing viewers as he releases 'terrible' new music video
Hollywood's latest ' nepo baby ' has released a music video that had viewers spitting venom as they reacted with unbridled derision. The showbiz legacy in question is Caleb Moore Freundlich, the son of Julianne Moore and her longtime filmmaker husband Bart Freundlich. Now 27, Caleb has entered the industry himself, dropping his lesser-known surname and echoed his Oscar-winning mother with the sobriquet Caleb Moore. He has veered away from his parents' world, the movies, and become an indie musician, releasing a new single called Comeback Kid. The video consists of one shot of him walking down a city street as he complains about a lover who regards him as 'only a good time when you're not asleep.' Commenters were scathing about the 'terrible' video, cringing at the 'derivative music,' the 'weak' vocals and of course his Hollywood connections. 'Discovered by his mom! She's in the wrong biz, she should be a scout for a record label! Julienne has an ear that only a mother can have,' joked a viewer. One groaned: 'just what we need... another nepo baby,' another wondered: 'Why is he whispering... ?' and a third wrote: 'Terrible production, not genuine or memorable.' 'Nope. Weak sounding lacks vocal control,' came the verdict from another observer as an exasperated listener said: 'There are millions of better musicians .Everythingabout him is mediocre.' 'Wow,' marveled one listener. 'It pays to have to famous and wealthy parents. You can produce derivative music that has no intrinsic merit and have yourself a fine little career. Inside I'm sure he doesn't feel all that good about this.' 'Depressing,' an audience member opined, while another gasped: ' is really, really terrible. It is meant to be serious? Even his mom couldn't help this succeed.' The New York City release party for the music video included such names as Billy Crudup, who acted in the 2019 film After The Wedding directed by Caleb's father and starring Caleb's movie star mother, via Deadline. He took an auteur's approach to Comeback Kid, not only singing it but also producing, mixing, writing and mastering it himself. Caleb explained that the song was inspired by his epiphany that he had cultivated a '"keep your chin up" attitude almost to a fault.' Commenters were scathing about the 'terrible' video, cringing at the 'derivative music,' the 'weak' vocals and of course his Hollywood connections On the personal front, Caleb got engaged to his girlfriend Kibriyaá Morgan, a development Julianne celebrated by giving them a party. He is part of a glut of rising stars with famous parents, from Johnny Depp's daughter Lily-Rose Depp to Andie MacDowell's daughter Margaret Qualley. Maude Apatow, whose parents are Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, and Kaia Gerber, whose mother is Cindy Crawford, have shot to fame in recent years as well. Madonna's daughter Lourdes Leon, Heidi Klum's daughter Leni Klum and Elvis Presley's granddaughter Riley Keough are also coming up, among others like Maya Hawke, the daughter of Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. The online chatter around 'nepo babies' reached a fever pitch in December 2022 after New York magazine ran a viral cover story about the phenomenon. Dakota Johnson, whose parents are Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith and whose grandmother is Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren, was one of the faces on the cover. Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of Psycho actress Janet Leigh and Some Like It Hot dreamboat Tony Curtis, then waded into the debate.
Forbes
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Balancing A Career As A Pro Snowskater And Touring Rock Musician
Odds are, the members of your favorite band—unless that band is U2—likely don't do it as a full-time career. Most indie or alternative rock musicians work other jobs to make ends meet between touring and recording. Many do something else in the industry, such as producing, pressing records or manufacturing merch. Some do something altogether different—accounting, maybe, or teaching. That's the case for Zack Alworden, a touring bassist for rock bands Charmer and Liquid Mike who is also trying to balance a career as a professional snowskater for Ambition Snowskates. As did many kids coming of age in the '90s, the 32-year-old, a proud product of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, developed a childhood interest in skateboarding. Alworden grew up on a steady stream of skate videos, including Enjoi's 'Bag of Suck' and the 'Bummer' videos out of Illinois. Alworden had a special affinity for videos featuring Midwest skating in particular. Marquette, Michigan, does not boast a large skate scene. 'It's a lot of relatable skateboarding,' he said. 'It's the type of spots we'll find when we skate.' But even as he consumed as many skate videos as one can download on Limewire, witnessing a neighbor across his cul-de-sac riding a snowskate set Alworden, then ten years old, on a different path. And the stakes involved in riding on snow were certainly much lower than on concrete. For the uninitiated, snowskating is more closely related to skateboarding than snowboarding. The single-deck boards look much like a skateboard with no trucks or wheels, and the sport is primarily performed on street features like stair sets, rails and ledges. There are bi-deck, or mountain, snowskates designed for carving on hills, but Ambition doesn't manufacture those. Some snowboard manufacturers, such as Jones Snowboards, offer bi-deck snowskates. At 16, in his sophomore year of high school, Alworden had honed his snowskating skills enough to join the flow team at Ambition, a Canadian brand established in 2004. Like in other action sports, a flow team is essentially a development team for a given brand. Flow athletes are still considered amateurs, but they receive free product and have the opportunity to participate in brand projects to raise their profiles. 'I was very intentional when I was that age,' Alworden said. 'It was my dream to be sponsored. It was such a small community, with a very limited amount of videos and coverage coming out. But I'd see footage and think, 'I'm somewhat in the skill range of these people.'' Alworden rode for Ambition for 12 years before he got a pro model board. 'I was 28, but I wasn't a young buck by any means,' Alworden said. 'It's harder for someone to get a pro board in snowskating that it seems. There are a limited amount of molds they make every year; only so many people can have a pro board on the team.' Alworden brings three snowskates to every session. His own, a mid-size model, is great for flip tricks. His friend and fellow Ambition team member Dan Bergeon's signature board is the biggest the brand produces and is great for boardslides or ollies. At 32, Alworden is living his dream of being a pro snowskater. He had the opening parts in Ambition's 'Bleached' (2022) and parts in other videos like Ambition's 'Encore' (2019) and 'Solstice' (2017). But now, the scope of his goals stretches beyond his own career. Alworden is tirelessly trying to increase the sport's exposure. He handles social channels for Ambition and he also mails out all the brand's product in the U.S. 'My basement is filled with hundreds and hundreds of snowskates,' he says. For this reason, it's difficult for Alworden to take off for large stretches of time to play bass for Charmer and Liquid Mike, especially in the winter months, which are prime for snowskating. But Charmer has a new full-length album, Downpour, coming out Friday, and life came together to allow its four members to embark on a brief six-stop tour in June to promote it. In April, Alworden was out on tour with Liquid Mike. 'I have a very up-and-go lifestyle at this point,' Alworden said. 'It's how I carved out my life, and it's all I ever wanted. But getting older, I'm like, 'Wow, this is becoming a lot.' At the end of the day I do love touring. I'm such a music fanatic. But if I had to drop it all to snowskate and skateboard, I would.' Pro snowskater Zack Alworden hits a feature Ambition Snowskates In some ways, Alworden has snowskating to thank for his music career. At 13, Alworden was at a movie theater when Neil Berg, then 12, approached him. Alworden was wearing an old snowskate brand's T-shirt, and Berg couldn't believe he'd found someone else in their small Upper Peninsula town who was interested in the sport. The two started snowskating together the following winter and continue to do so to this day. Berg joined Charmer as the band's lead guitarist in 2015. At that time, Alworden, who has since moved back to Marquette, was living in Kalamazoo, about seven hours away. When Charmer was on the road, they—Berg, vocalist/guitarist David Daignault and drummer Nick Erickson—would stay with Alworden, thanks to his existing relationship with Berg. 'Neil is really the reason I was ever able to join the band,' Alworden said. 'He also designed my last board graphic. He's such a talented skateboarder and snowskater, and I'm very grateful we're still skating together nearly 20 years later.' Alworden is working as part of a small committee advocating for a new skatepark to be built just outside Marquette. As a snowskater, he can also highlight how the park could be used in winter. The inverse has happened; Alworden pointed to a Montreal park built for snowskating that remains open year-round for skateboarders to use too. It starts at the local level; snowskating has to cultivate local scenes for anything to happen with the sport on a more mainstream level. Sometimes, big companies show interest in the sport; in 2015, Ambition partnered with Red Bull on a collaboration. X Games has been keeping an eye on the sport for the better part of 20 years, though the seminal action sports event has trended toward decreasing, not increasing, its sports offerings. 'Snowskating doesn't seem to have this staying power,' Alworden said. It's heavily dependent on snow conditions, which vary from day to day. And unlike skateboarding, snowskaters can't always just show up and hit features; they frequently do hours of prepping to make spots viable for snowskating. 'These companies look at snowskating from the outside and see us at our best and they're like, 'Why are we not trying to get in on the ground floor on this?' But when they see the inconsistencies, just because every day is going to be different, maybe they distance themselves.' Still, the exposure is much higher now than it was when Alworden took up the sport nearly 20 years ago. Alworden does his part, sending out snowskates every year to skateboarders. Recently, Ambition released a board for pro skateboarder John Shanahan in collaboration with Public, which also carries a Shanahan pro model snowboard. 'Someone like John Shanahan, a very respected professional skater who's been in the running for Skater of the Year, to watch him dip his toes into snowskating rocks,' Alworden said. The biggest names in skateboarding, like Tony Hawk, Jamie Foy and Thrasher, have also posted snowskating videos. 'I'm glad they're not seeing it as this kooky thing anymore,' Alworden said. 'I mean, don't get me wrong; it still is a little kooky," he added with a chuckle. 'But when these big names get involved, it's really gratifying.'
