Media Release 22 July 2015

90’s indie dance/pop sensation Saint Etienne to perform Foxbase Alpha in full at the National Concert Hall

90’s indie dance/pop sensation Saint Etienne will perform their treasured debut album Foxbase Alpha in full at the National Concert Hall on Tuesday 8th September, 8pm as part of ESB Live 2015. The three piece band; Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs released the album in 1991 on the newly founded Heavenly Recordings label and the band have opted to play it in its entirety as a celebration of the label’s 25th birthday.

Foxbase Alpha is considered one of the defining records of the era – a sort of post-acid house/60s pop fusion that hit in the wake of the so-called Second Summer of Love and was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize in 1992, the first year of the much coveted award. Featuring hit songs such as Only Love Can Break Your Heart and Nothing Can Stop Us, the album is seen as house music for indie kids, mixing standard TR-909 drum patterns and Italo piano riffs with found dialogue and the gritty sounds of London’s underground scene.

During the early 1990s Saint Etienne received great critical acclaim and enjoyed extensive coverage in UK music weekly papers NME and Melody Maker; they gained a reputation as purveyors of ‘pure pop’ in the period immediately prior to the Brit-pop explosion. They have released seven more records since Foxbase Alpha, most noticeably So Tough in 1993 and Words and Music by Saint Etienne in 2012.

“deftly fused the grooviness of Swinging Sixties London with a post-acid house backbeat’  – The Times