As seen in The Word, I"m loving this totally up my street album Tea and Symphony. Whatever the English baroque sound is - and it would seem it's anything with flute or harpsichord in a pop song - it's here.
This would soundtrack your life if you ran a small but relatively profitable bistro in Exeter or Bath in 1971, had a live-in lover called Jenny who wore long patterned dresses and her hair up, and you knew everyone who worked the market in the square, especially John and Eleanor Greenhouse who ran an antique stall and were of a similar age. Your life is very much Ob-lad-di-ob-la-da. Do you get the picture?
That's what I love about any compilation album put together by Bob Stanley. He always comes up trumps. I've banged on about my one of my favourite ever albums a lot on this blog, and I stand by it. The follow up Early Morning Hush is a gift that has kept on giving too.
So what's next Bob?
4 comments:
I love the retro graphic design and typography on these too. When I was about seven or eight I had a cookbook for girls that had very similar illustrations, all girls with long dresses and floaty swirls of hair, making fairy cakes amid a rustically drawn kitchen for shyly smiling boys in flares. This is what I imagined being grown-up would be like.
Where did it all go wrong?
I read Maconie's review and thought that album was tailor-made for you.
I'm pinning my hopes on a Left Banke revival for the autumn.
The Left Banke, yes, Walk Away Renee is as baroque as it comes, isn't it.
And Kitten, being grown up can be like that if you want it to be. Look at me.
I'd love Bob Stanley and co. to actually get on and release a "proper" new Saint Etienne album. I've been a HUGE fan of them since 1990 and I'm a bit of a completist as far as they go - spent a freakin' fortune on them over the past 17 years. They've been mooching around recording soundtracks for the last couple of years and - truly great as they are - I'm starting to get a bit weary of it all.
Don't get me wrong, Stanley's compilations are always outstanding and well worth a punt, but a follow-up to 2005's "Tales From Turnpike House" is surely overdue?
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