I've Been Trying To Tell You Tim's Twitter Listening Party
| Start |
Bob: "It's mesmerizing and peaceful, uplifting and heartbreaking all at once. Further listens only intensify the cohesive power and pocket grandeur of the record" @allmusic on I've Been Trying To Tell You. You can join me Wiggsy and Crackers at @LlSTENlNG_PARTY at 9pm tonight. (8:20) Sarah: Good evening tweety-pies! Crackers in the house! Are you fastened up and ready to go on a trip? (8:57) SaintEtienneDisco: And it is a trip (9:02) Tim: "It's Saint Etienne time. Handing over to @petewiggs @bobpetesarah and Sarah at the @LlSTENlNG_PARTY account. Confused? Don't worry" (9:00) |
| Music Again 0:00-5:45 |
Bob: This one makes me think of lying in bed, waking up with the usual foggy head I had in 1998. Radio 2 would be on in the background, playing slo-mo UK R&B with added harpsichord. And sometimes Shania Twain. (9:00) Sarah: Bob! Pete! Are we good to go? How about you guys? Shall we press play? Let's do it! (9:00) Bob: We're good to gone! Up and running. (9:02) Sarah: 1 - MUSIC AGAIN The tempo reminds me of walking through mooring mud in Burnham-On-Crouch where I used to spend the holidays as a kid. (9:02) Pete: This is one of the first tracks we worked on to explore the concept, Bob came up with a playlist of sampleable songs to pick from. (9:03) Pete: I loved the almost folky sound of the slowed down harpsichord, and the odd soulful snatch of original vocal in the following loops. (9:03) Bob: I love Pete's gently psychedelic backwards section, stopping, then coming back in with a sigh. It's quite liberating to talk about your music as if it was someone else's - it feels more doable when you've not all been in the studio at the same time. (9:04) Pete: I was going for a hallucinogenic sound, there's lots of backwards loops running under everything (except the backwards section!). (9:04) Sarah: My friend's Mum had a saying: "it's something and nothing." I had this in mind when writing the lyrics. (9:05) Bob: It also evokes something Elizabethan. The New Elizabethans of the early fifties, possibly. Or it might just be the harpsichord. (9:05) |
| Pond House 5:46-9:47 |
Bob: AugustinBo worked on this. I can't really produce music without an engineer and a multi-instrumentalist to put the sounds in my head on 'tape'. Gus can do both, which is very lucky for me. He also knows every living musician in Bradford. (9:07) Bob: Gus's studio is in the middle of Bradford, near a pub called The Corn Dolly which does chilli con carne in a giant Yorkshire pudding at lunchtime. The pub also has a photo of former Bradford City player Ces Podd (best name ever) on the wall (9:08) Sarah: 2 - POND HOUSE This is repetitive, hypnotic and dreamlike, I recommend closing your eyes while you listen... (9:08) Bob: Natalie Imbruglia has been very kind about Pond House. We met her very briefly when she was recording at Xenomania in the late nineties. She was in the kitchen. I'm seeing a split screen of then and now. (9:09) Sarah: ...although perhaps not while taking part in this Listening Party. (9:09) Pete: We worked on different tracks in different locations and I was really excited to hear what Bob and Gus were going to come up with, and loved it obvs. (9:09) Pete: Great woozy synths and bassline. Bob and Gus did a lot of field recordings that add to the woozy dreamlike atmos. (9:10) Sarah: I love Natalie.(9:10) 
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| Fonteyn 9:48-14:37 |
Bob: There's a bit of Southampton Water in Alasdair McLellan's movie of I've Been Trying To Tell You. Owen Hatherley is from Southampton. He wrote a very perfect sleevenote for the album #soton (9:11) Pete: This was once 9 minutes long and had more loops from Raincloud in the latter section, went through a few different vocal ideas before settling on this mix. (9:11) Sarah: 3 - FONTEYN The atmosphere in the first half of this makes me feel like I've done something naughty, bad maybe! It sounds sinister, then the euphoric section kicks in. (9:12) Bob: My favourite bits of the album are where the sounds open up like a door into another room, or maybe onto a garden in this case. Or, even, jumping into a swimming pool if you're watching the movie. (9:13) Pete: I wanted it to really burst into life after the slow burn build. Again Sarah's mysterious vocal line really makes it, I feel its like a conversation with the past. (9:13) Sarah: Director Alasdair McLellan chose a beautiful underwater swimming sequence for the latter part of the song which is exactly what I'd imagined. There's a fabulous Aqua Marina vibe. (9:14) 
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| Little K 14:38-20:22 |
Bob: Little K is definitely spring. In the park, lying on the grass, drifting off. Some blossom. (I'm allergic to blossom). (9:15) Pete: This was the first song I worked on for the album. Along with the spoken lyric that Bob provided I think it has the feel of a self hypnosis tape. (9:16) Bob: I love the way this evaporates in a heat haze. It sounds like Sarah is melting away. Her spoken vocal on this is magical. (9:18) Pete: Nice to get a bit of flanging in! used sparingly I love it. If drunk and DJing though me and Bob can get over keen on the flange button if there's one on the dj mixer. (9:19) |
| Blue Kite 20:23-25:13 |
Bob: Quite an unsettling start to Side 2. It has a feel of My Bloody Valentine, even though I don't think Pete added any guitars. (9:21) Pete: Using lots of mangling and effects on a piano loop I ended up with the central sound of this which I felt was like a fizzing ball of life, it does sound like there's guitars but they kind of magically appeared. (9:22) Sarah: 5 - BLUE KITE I can't believe Vince Clarke agreed to do a remix of this, it's absolutely amazing! He's such a superstar! (9:22) Pete: Sometimes I think this is a euphoric track and others quite a melancholic one. (9:23) Bob: A random memory this has dragged up... me and Pete went to a fireworks display on Highbury Fields with the Aphex Twin in 1992. There was a fair and they were blasting out Last Train To Transcentral. (9:24) SaintEtienneDisco: All aboard, all aboard, ooh (9:26) |
| I Remember It Well 25:14-29:13 |
Bob: Different memories on this one. Summer into autumn. School starts again. Selling eggs on Surrey Street market. The bloke on the stall next to ours used to shout "Any cauli on the trolley". Or in moments of high excitement "Oh golly, what a cauli". (9:26) Bob: I went to Allders in Croydon after school in November 1981 and I bought Non Stop Erotic Cabaret and Architecture And Morality there. On the same day. Day of days! (9:27) Pete: This is the most real instrumenty track on the album and its so moving, especially alongside Alisdair Maclellans visuals. Gus made the choir pad from lots of takes of Sarah's vocals. (9:27) Bob: Guitar magique from Gus. I'm reminded of both one of the transitional episodes of Twin Peaks and Echo and the Bunnymen's Heaven Up Here (which >> Ocean Rain). (9:29) Sarah: 6 - I REMEMBER IT WELL I didn't really know Gus Bousfield at this point, he's a mate of Bob's from the Bradford area. He asked me to sing lots of Ooohs, I like singing Ooohs. (9:29) Sarah: I love all the 'found sound'. People just going about their business. (9:29) |
| Penlop 29:14-34:43 |
Bob: Properly autumnal now. Maybe shades of Justin Hayward, who these days reminds me of a parallel world Mark E Smith. (9:30) Sarah: 7 - PENLOP I remember recording this in my son Sam's bedroom, trying not to nose around in his private world. It was a bit drizzly outside but I wanted it to sound driving and positive. (9:31) Sarah: I definitely had Elizabeth Fraser in mind. (9:32) 
Pete: After we'd finished recording I had a flood in my studio and couldn't get it ready again for months. Sarah made a few really good suggestions on tweaking Penlop's ending, luckily I got the studio back 2 days before mastering and got em in. (9:33) Bob: The way Pete lifts this, then does it again almost immediately after, makes me think of the double key change on Hall & Oates' She's Gone or the Bee Gees' Fanny Be Tender. (9:33) |
| Broad River 34:44-40:18 |
Bob: Broad River. It could be the Aire when its been raining heavily (beautiful but quite frightening). Or something more serene. I can see a heron. (9:36) Sarah: 8: BROAD RIVER I know Twitter isn't a visual medium but for me this is my favourite moment in the film that Alasdair made. It always makes me want to cry... (cont'd) (9:36) Pete: Bob's suggestion of the Tasmin Archer sample was genius and I loved playing around with it. I think of this track as a kind of Balearic shoegaze number. Possibly my favourite, I think Sarah's mournful vocal is like a siren luring you in. (9:36) Sarah: (cont'd) ...The three beautiful skateboarding girls in slow motion on an undulating, concrete landscape. Beautiful and melancholy. (9:36) |
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Bob: There you go. Thanks everyone for joining in. We're really proud of this album and properly thrilled that it's been going down so well. Thank you! (9:40) Sarah: Thank you so much Tim for welcoming us back to your continuing musical love-in. It's so brilliant to have been able to count you as a friend for three decades. Here's to three more! (9:40) Pete: yes thanks all for listening xx Pete (9:42) Sarah: And thank you so much to all our loyal, lovely fans - not just for helping us celebrate the release of I've Been Trying To Tell You, but for your companionship & support over the years. We love you. (9:42) 
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