Next month, the great London trio Saint Etienne will say goodbye. They have been a group for 35 years now, and they've got some absolute dance-pop classics in their catalog. Over the decades, they hever stopped evolving and experimenting. Soon, they'll release International, their 12th and apparently final studio album. (If the "final album" stuff turns out to be a conceptual stunt and they keep on recording, that'll be just fine with me.) We have already posted lead single "Glad," which features Doves' Jimi Goodwin and the group co-wrote and co-produced with the Chemical Brothers' Tom Rowlands. Now, they've shared another single.
Saint Etienne's new track "Take Me To The Pilot" is not an Elton John cover. The group made the track with the assistance of another '90s dance great -- Orbital's Paul Hartnoll, who co-wrote and co-produced the song. It's a gorgeously swirling rave track that evokes past revolutions while still feeling firmly futuristic. Honestly, it's amazing that anyone can make a track like this when they're so many decades into their career. Here's what Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley says about "Take Me To The Pilot" in a press release:
"Take Me To The Pilot" is a dark mystery, a flight to somewhere new, somewhere to make your heart beat faster. It’s about escape, disappearance, reinvention. Who’s the pilot? You don’t get to find out -- that’s the mystery, and the fun. Paul Hartnoll from Orbital and Tim Powell from Xenomania worked on it with us, and it might just have the best bassline we’ve ever released.
And here's Pete Wiggs:
Back in 1990, after Bob had written a piece on Orbital, the Hartnoll brothers kindly let us see their stage setup. We hadn’t done anything live yet and were slightly mystified. I think we remained so. Years later, now much wiser, I was reintroduced to Paul at a party in Hove, where I now live. We kept bumping into each other on the seafront, got chatting, and although I wasn’t sure he’d say yes, I asked if he’d be up for writing a song with us. He did -- and we love it!
Fashion photographer Alasdair McLellan shot the "Take Me To The Pilot" video in Rome, and it works as a showcase for an exceptionally good-looking breakdancer who goes by the name Jet. Here's what McLellan has to say:
We were shooting this lad called Jet, a breakdancer, for Arena Homme+ when Bob got in touch about a video for Saint Etienne. I filmed Jet breakin’ outside a bungalow in Tickhill, the village near Doncaster where I grew up. When Bob mentioned the album was called International, I decided to expand the idea and shoot a second part in Rome. It happened to coincide with the Vatican choosing the next Pope, so I thought why not have Jet dancing through the streets, with piazzas and Ponte Sant’Angelo’s angel sculptures in the background? As we moved through the city, the video unfolded into a kind of breakin’ pilgrimage to St Peter’s in the Vatican.
Check it out below.
International is out 9/5 on Heavenly.
