At a certain point, getting stuck at JFK isn’t so bad. By midnight, the crowds are gone. After 2 a.m., most of the few travelers left are sleeping. I don’t know how they do it. The chairs at the gates are uncomfortable and I can’t bring myself to stretch out on carpet that people have been trampling over all day. So, I pop in my earbuds and finish an assignment that’s due on Monday while bobbing my head along to the Bob Vylan and Kneecap albums on my laptop. Then I remember that Saint Etienne’s latest, and last, album, International, came out on Friday, so I look it up, buy a digital copy, and tune in.
International is a perfect finale for the long-running, British indie pop trio and, really, the ideal music for this very strange night. Saint Etienne have spent the past 35 years making music, and creating an image, that blurs the past, present and future. Their breakthrough single, “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” was a cover of a Neil Young song reconfigured with a Burt Bacharach-meets-Stone Roses sensibility. From there, Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell made mod pop and house jams, flirted with Eurodance and experimental electronic music and played with psychedelic and ambient sounds, all the while showing a real reverence for both the most commercial and underground histories of 20th and 21st century music. As International is an intentional final album, it draws from all of the influences that have appeared in Saint Etienne’s music since the dawn of the 1990s.
What always appealed to me about Saint Etienne is how they distilled mid 20th century music and visual references into a vibe that’s always contemporary and, usually, wistful. Even when I was a teenager in the 1990s and started listening to the band, it was obvious that we weren’t ever going to live in The Jetsons and all that post-World War II techno-optimism was for naught. Saint Etienne’s music, which, even at its most danceable, has a touch of melancholy to it, was the equivalent of looking through faded photos of 1960s Tomorrowland, realizing that the future didn’t pan out the way Imagineers envisioned, but it’s also mine and at least I can dance my way through it.
I was on my way home from a DJ gig in New York, a quick trip that began on Friday morning and should have had me back home in L.A. on Saturday night. But, nature had other plans. A storm hit and I spent Saturday night wandering through the airport instead.
By the time I listened to International, my ultimately-canceled flights changed gates so many times that I wasn’t even sure exactly where I was, somewhere in Terminal 4, near the Minute Suites that are booked up until morning. The international jet set has long since departed to London, Paris and Amsterdam. Maybe it was just us West Coast-bound travelers who were affected? I don’t know. I wrap myself up in the slate blue Delta blanket that a night shift employee handed me as the album opens with a dance beat that hops between my right and left earbud. “Don’t it make you glad to be alive?” Cracknell sings in “Glad.” “And don’t it make you sad?” There’s a sampled vocal in the background that reminds me of ‘90s house jams.
I catch the groove of “Dancing Heart,” a bop with Kylie Minogue energy, while sitting on a makeshift pillow, hum along to “The Go Betweens,” where Cracknell shares vocals with Nick Hayward, and soak up the atmospheric in “Sweet Melodies.”
When I was a kid, I wondered what it might be like to wander through the mall afterhours. I think my night inside JFK answers that question. It’s not as dramatic as Night of the Comet or Chopping Mall, but the vibe is similarly apocalyptic. Without the bustle of the crowds, the space feels completely soulless. It’s a bright, shiny cavern with reminders of late stage capitalism lurking around every corner. The lights and the temperature in here never seem to change. If the restaurants and shops weren’t closed, I would have no idea that we were well past the witching hour. I look out a window and see a jet parked on the slick ground. It’s raining, but not pouring. I guess the wind is stronger than what you can see through a smudgy pane of glass?
“Save It For a Rainy Day” quickly becomes one of my favorite songs on International and will likely make it into my DJ sets very soon. It has more of an Italo disco feel than anything else I’ve heard Saint Etienne do. The song hits hard now, as I try to think of what time it is back home and whether or not it’s too late to text my husband.
“Brand New Me,” Saint Etienne’s collaboration with Confidence Man, is a standout on the album and another one that will definitely be in my DJ sets soon. It evokes the classic Saint Etienne jams, particularly “Nothing Can Stop Us,” the song where the band solidified its lineup with Cracknell on vocals. The video for “Brand New Me” is an adorable homage to Hanna Barbera cartoons.
“Take Me to the Pilot,” a somber, ethereal song with an old school rave sensibility, hits even harder than “Save It For a Rainy Day.” The lyrics, “take me to the pilot, I feel I need to fly now” run through my head long after I’ve finished listening to the album. I think of it when the morning crowd rushes in and I lug my carry-ons to yet another gate, where I wait with people people flying to San Diego and Santo Domingo, counting down the hours until I’m home. When my 10 a.m. flight is canceled too, I want to scream this lyric at the travel associates.
“I really need to get home,” I say to someone on a phone. “This is my third canceled flight.” I start to think about that one movie where Tom Hanks lives in an airport. I can’t do that. I’ve already gotten sick from one overpriced meal here.
“You’re already rebooked. You’ll fly to Nashville at 11 a.m. and then to Los Angeles.”
“I am? But, why aren’t I getting updates?”
Late into International, Saint Etienne drops “He’s Gone,” an energetic house track that recalls their banger “He’s on the Phone.” I feel that dance floor pulse as I rush across the airport again, past the duty free shops and into a maze of gates that look like a newer addition to the terminal as I try to find this flight to Nashville that I need to catch.
“The Last Time” is the final song on International and a gorgeous closing statement from Saint Etienne. “We’re not the dandy highwaymen you might expect to find,” Cracknell sings after reflecting on the life of the band. Nothing is ever as glamorous as you suspect it might be, maybe, especially, if there are airports involved. But, life is good, I think when I finish my first listen. It’s a sentiment I hang onto through the morning and into the afternoon, after settling into a new plane in Nashville. Somewhere in the sky above Colorado, I plug in the earbuds again, get back to listening to International and start writing.
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Liz O. is an L.A.-based writer and DJ. Read her recently published work and check out her upcoming gigs or listen to the latest Beatique Mix. Follow on Instagram or Bluesky for more updates.
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