In Saint Etienne, it is usually Bob Stanley who suggests the band’s tightly defined album concepts. What if you graft folk melodies to dance music? Make vaporwave about early New Labour? While finishing ambient pop album The Night, released in the dark of last winter, Stanley pitched an even starker one for its successor: the end of their band.
“I didn’t think I was saying anything uncomfortable or shocking,” says Stanley, affable and understated, in a park near his Bradford home. “When you’ve known each other for so long you have a psychic thing anyway. It felt like we would all agree.”
