Has there ever been a record more inviting than So Tough? Yeah, yeah: That's one of those classic contentious record review openers. Open to debate, easy enough to pick apart. I'm sure I could name 10 albums that rival So Tough on that front myself. But when So Tough is actually playing, I'm not sure I can think of any other record I so hope to one day find myself walking around inside of: It's like a bright, hazy early morning captured on disc, those hours where the day is still all potential.
In the two years between Saint Etienne's debut, 1991's Foxbase Alpha, and follow-up So Tough, Pete Wiggs, Bob Stanley, and Sarah Cracknell grew confident enough to chase that early morning vibe for a whole LP rather than craft Obvious Chart Hits to cement their status as burgeoning UK pop fixtures. Even the album's catchiest moments -- "Mario's Cafe", "You're in a Bad Way", "Avenue" -- are like sketches snatched from a personal demo reel compared to some of the glitzy indie-bubblegum and D.I.Y. disco on this reissue's second disc of extras and B-sides (cf. "Who Do You Think You Are?" and "Join Our Club").
So Tough is that common paradox of the sampling era: carefully constructed to feel completely casual. Even the sampled movie and TV dialogue sounds more like field-recorded day-in-the-life pub chatter. And Wiggs and Stanley's heavy-duty studio effects soften every instrument. The crispness of the percussion is eroded with reggae-tinted reverb on "You're in a Bad Way"; "No Rainbows For Me" is a slo-mo girl group shuffle drowned in dream-pop noise. A mock-menacing beat familiar to fans of the Beastie Boys (or the Incredible Bongo Band) can be muted into "Calico", as agreeably sleepy as kinda-sorta hip-hop ever got.
So Tough is a young person's record, in that it suggests there's everywhere left to go in life while seeming in no great hurry to get anywhere in particular. It was made by a trio who'd recently happened upon a singular atmosphere, and then had no problem just soaking the listener in it. The title of the first bonus tune on disc two, "Everything Flows", was of course named by Teenagle Fanclub (it's a cover of their debut single), but it summarizes the feel So Tough well enough. But so does its sound: Unutterably gorgeous pop-house with the off-the-cuff quality of both indie and ambient, without ever committing to any on genre. There's still no better soundtrack to whiling away your life in a café.
Recorded seven years later, Sound of Water is similarly low-key, but with the unmistakable feel of adulthood, the accumulated responsibilities and disappointments. Out goes the unexamined, endearing optimism. Wistfulness has crept in, both lyrically and sonically. It's probably no coincidence that the first single was called "How We Used to Live", a multi-part minor masterpiece that came off like someone watching the young lovers of So Tough drift apart in memory. On Sound of Water, Saint Etienne's earlier records now seem to represent a world that can be observed, or fondly/painfully remembered, but no longer entered into. And musically, it seems that for the band growing up means smartening up. The swooning ambience of the band's first few records has likewise been buffed away, revealing sleeker, sharper-edged techno-pop. The album is more traditionally stylish, but tinged with an ill-defined sadness. Even the title suggests something beautiful but chilly, and in this case maybe a little too pristine.
That's not to say Sound of Water is a bad album, just harder to immediately fall in love with than the cuddly So Tough. The turn of the millennium was a time for many indie-identified Brit bands to suddenly start making their records very slick and traditionally well-made in a very specific "electronica era" sort of way. Sometimes, thematically, it worked, as with the aforementioned "How We Used to Live". But often, as with the antiseptic digital (or digital-sounding) arrangement of "Roseneck", you have to listen past the band's restraint to hear the emotion under the beautiful-but-sterile computer-assisted minimalism.
The second disc of era-specific B-sides and bonus tracks is obvious a grab-bag of highs and lows, quality-wise. But the schizo mood-hopping actually helps to undo some of the parent album's stiffness, despite the songs being made with the same materials. You may still not be ready to enjoy the vibraphone again, but it's undeniable that, on the evidence of "52 Pilot", Saint Etienne deployed that overused emblem of late-90s high-seriousness more playfully than Stereolab or Tortoise ever managed. Especially since it's bracketed by the icy miniature "Ivyhouse" and the more-or-less straightforward club cut "We're in the City".
Future records would handle Saint Etienne's late-career embrace of age and wisdom and skill with more warmth and less compositional control-freakitude. It probably didn't hurt that they turned back to the organic oddness of rural and urban England as a source of inspiration, rather than continuing to pine for the mock-futuristic placelessness of turn-of-the-millennium continental European laptop gurus. If Sound of Water isn't a Saint Etienne classic, it's not for lack of craft or even inspiration. It's because it's often hard to feel at home in a world where the artists themselves are visitors.
