This week sees the release of Words And Music, the new album from British pop institution Saint Etienne.

The trio of Sarah Cracknell, Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley have been enchanting fans with their wistful suburban songcraft and careful curation of pop-cultural ephemera for 22 years now, and Words And Music is among their most affecting releases to date. To celebrate its arrival, and given the band’s reputation as record collectors of impeccable taste, we asked Wiggs to talk us through five songs that are currently enjoying heavy rotation round his gaff.

NINA KRAVIZ
‘TAXI TALK’
(from NINA KRAVIZ, REKIDS LP, 2012)

Pete Wiggs: “I’ve really got into that moody, vocal, housey stuff that’s been around a lot recently. And I always find it interesting when women are making music. It has a real atmosphere to it, it takes you back – it’s reminiscent of earlier house, when there was a lot of spoke word – people who couldn’t sing, basically [laughs]. But it worked, it gave a kind of creepiness to the tunes – like Blake Baxter’s stuff.

“It’s almost like you get a sort of cinematic quality from spoken vocals; they’re often quite creepy or odd scenarios, and even if you don’t completely know what’s going on, it’s like hearing snippets of conversation, fragments, and they end up being more listening records than dancing records, I’d say. Wit this one in particular, ‘Taxi Talk’, you’re immediately put in the back of a taxi, witnessing some kind of weirdness going on [laughs]…it’s like watching a slightly odd thriller. Generally I favour things that have vocals on them in some respect; it helps outs you into another world. The John Talabot album is another recent dance album that stands out as something that you can listen to at home.”

GAT DECOR
‘PASSION’
(EFFECTIVE 12″, 1992)

PW: “This is something I hadn’t hear for years then heard again recently, and it seems to have really stood the test of time. I used to go to Kinky Disco quite a lot – I missed out on Shoom [laughs] – around the time that what they called ‘progressive’ house started. I love piano-driven house, and this has that aspect, but it’s also quite tough, with an acid-y, driving feel that stops it from being cheesy. Although some people might still think it’s cheesy! [laughs].

“The use of the word ‘progressive’ was quite annoying really [laughs], talking like this was the more sophisticated stuff, the proper stuff – like progressive rock as opposed to rock [laughs]. Progressive house didn’t have so much in the way of breaks, rave gaps, hands-in-the-air moments – stuff that I actually really liked. That stuff was melting out and it was lot more about a driving beat, with not so many ups and downs, but ‘Passion’ retains some of that.

“In terms of new dance music, it was quite hard back then to keep abreast of what was going on, or at least hard to have an overview. A lot depended on what record shop you were going to at the time, and what they had on the wall; and of course you’d read about a lot of it in magazines and so on. I didn’t buy a huge amount of dance vinyl in those days, partly because I didn’t have much money [laughs]. But you’d go to the shop, get a stack of 12″s to listen to, and work your way through them, yeah. Once dance sub-genres started coming in I was like, oh god [laughs]. I always liked a range of different stuff, rather than some particular strain of dance music, and it seemed a bit daft to limit yourself that way.”

BILL EVANS TRIO
‘PEACE PIECE’
(from EVERYBODY DIGS BILL EVANS, RIVERSIDE LP, 1958)

PW: “‘Peace Piece’ is a bit like Debussy or something like that…it sounds naff to say it, but pretty much as soon as you hear it, you feel your shoulders relax [laughs]. You sort of lean into it. But without it being horrible new age music. It’s quite melancholic…and quite evocative. I get images of white flags in my head when I hear it, but that’s probably just me [laughs]…

“I do this radio show, The Seance, and I was in the studio testing out this effects program I got, called Effectrix – it’s a kind of time-based, you can put in things and every now and then and at regular intervals a glitch happens or a reverb comes or whatever…and I ran this song through it, and spent about an hour playing with it [laughs] – it was really good, because the essence of the song is there but then every few seconds you get these mad glitches…[laughs]. Yeah, good song.”

BRENDA LEE EAGER
‘THERE AIN’T NO WAY’
(MERCURY 7″, 1974)

PW: “Not many people seem to know this one. She didn’t make that many records, but there’s three particularly brilliant singles that she did. She was famous for a short while, because she duetted with Jerry Butler on a no.1 hit in America, called ‘Ain’t Understanding Mellow’ – which wasn’t a hit over here actually, but it’s a great song. You can get these records that you think, oh, it’s undiscovered, then you find out it was no.1 in America [laughs]. This song always comes back to me – a bit like the Prince song, one of those melodies that just floats into my mind at various times. I was really into soul music for quite a long time, DJing it and so on, and this wasn’t an expensive record at all [perhaps not then – it’s £40 now! – Ed] – it’s not all about super-rare £500 singles, I hate all that stuff.”

As told to Tim Purdom
Saint Etienne’s Words And Music is out now. Check out Pete Wiggs’ radio show, The Seance, on Radio Reverb.