Tracks:
Sun in My Morning
Milk Bottle Symphony
Lightning Strikes Twice
Slow Down at the Castle
A Good Thing
Side Streets
Last Orders for Gary Stead
Stars Above Us
Relocate
The Bird Man of EC1
Teenage Winter
Goodnight Jack
Inside the Hive
Aqualad
Book Norton
Quiet Essex

Performer Notes:

• Audio Remasterer: Guy Davie.
• Liner Note Author: Travis Elborough.
• Recording information: Cat Music; Needham Sound; The Old Vicarage.
• Photographer: Rachael Cassells.
• Saint Etienne, the U.K.'s foremost purveyors of indie dance pop, returned in 2006 with TALES FROM TURNPIKE HOUSE. The trio is in excellent form here, revisiting the propulsive disco and house-inflected fare of their earlier releases on cuts like "A Good Thing" and "Stars Above Us." Yet songwriters/producers Pete Wiggs and Bob Stanley are as steeped in music history as ever, harking back to the 1960s harmony-heavy pop of the Beach Boys ("Sun in My Morning") and the wiry sounds of '80s new wave ("Oh My").
• Sarah Cracknell's breathy vocals add just the right amount of breeziness and luster to these pop confections. The album's best moments, in fact, are its quietest, when Cracknell's sultry whisper and Wiggs and Stanley's glossy arrangements and production are brought into perfect balance (the bossa nova-themed opener "Side Streets" and the hazy, downtempo "Dream Lover" are two cases in point). Beautifully conceived and executed, TALES FROM TURNPIKE HOUSE is a refreshing dose of electronic pop purity.

Professional Reviews: Rolling Stone (p.64) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[A]n unabashedly joyful celebration of being British...[it] could make an Anglophile out of anyone."

Magnet (p.111) - "TALES is unabashedly domestic, and to avoid being too groove-heavy or sleepy, it's sequenced to pogo between lite ballads and dance-floor fodder."

Record Collector (magazine) (p.90) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Pure pop producers Xenomania were at the helm and David Essex added extra vocals."

Uncut (magazine) (p.99) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[B]ittersweet laments for the lost romance of towerblocks and teenage dreams, particularly on desolate career highpoint 'Teenage Winter'."

Format: CD (2 Disc)

Country: USA

Studio/Live: Studio

Release Date: 7 July, 2017

Label: Heavenly Recordings

Dimensions: 12.6 x 1.7 x 14.3 centimeters (0.09 kg)