This week, I had a chat with Bob Stanley, musician, journalist, author, film producer and one third of the seminal Saint Etienne (the other two thirds being Sarah Cracknell and Pete Wiggs).  

Saint Etienne’s tenth studio album, I’ve Been Trying To Tell You, is out this Friday and we spoke about how it questions nostalgia and asks were the ‘90s as optimistic as we now think of them as being? Their sampladelic debut Foxbase Alpha, up front classics like Only Love Will Break Your Heart and Join Our Club arrived like a melancholic dream years before the hazy electronic beats of hypnogogic pop became a thing. We spoke over a Transeuropean cuppa about the appeal of melancholy, ask if nostalgia is an illusion and  we even share a couple of Carry On style double entendres.

Title music by ESO

The new Saint Etienne album, I’ve Been Trying To Tell You, is available from September 10th here.

If you’d like to help fund Lost and Sound for the price of a coffee, head on over to the show’s Ko-Fi crowdsouce.