Pure Pop and Proud of It

If patience is a virtue, the English chiffon-pop band Saint Etienne is aptly named.

Since 1991, the prolific trio has pumped out a stream of albums, EPs, singles and collections of odds and ends, establishing dreamy, toothsomely catchy mellowness as its hallmark.

Sarah Cracknell’s feathery voice wafts along romantically atop gurgling, lightly electronic popscapes produced by her keyboard-playing bandmates, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs. It sounds as if New Order’s synth machinery has been greased with the pop lubrication of Abba, Burt Bacharach, Petula Clark and 1960s girl groups.

British pop acts tend to think that America won its independence so they would have a big, rich country to invade. But Saint Etienne never had played here until a few months ago, except for a single music-industry showcase performance in New York City in 1994 that the band considered a disaster.

“We were always keen [on touring in America], but nobody ever asked us,” Cracknell, a blond beauty who counts Blondie coquette Debbie Harry and Cocteau Twins’ austerely ethereal warbler, Elizabeth Fraser, as her chief vocal inspirations, said last week from a Chicago hotel room.

For a woman who says she has a boundless appetite for sleep, and who had stirred from bed at 1 p.m. to answer the phone, Cracknell was remarkably sporting and cheerful. Some British pop stars forced to undergo press interrogation yawn through an interview even when they’re not really yawning--a perhaps understandable response given the British music-writing establishment’s penchant for building up newcomers with the most hyperbolic praise, only to shoot them down with the most seething damnation, all rendered in prose that is purpler and more egotistically self-serving than royalty itself. Cracknell yawned openly, from sleepiness, and thoughtfully apologized: “Sorry, I’m not bored. I’ve just woken up.”

Warner Bros., the band’s U.S. label through the early 1990s, “never seemed to think [touring] was a good idea” and wouldn’t front Saint Etienne the money it needed to play here, Cracknell said. Indeed, with grunge, then punk, making rage all the rage in the American market, Saint Etienne didn’t seem a ripe prospect for the big bonanza that big labels want. Its four albums from 1991 to 1995 (the last a singles collection) yielded hits in Britain but drew little attention in the United States.

But now, to borrow a euphemism from NATO, the United States offers a far more permissive environment for a delayed Saint Etienne invasion. Sleek, electronic textures and smooth techno-beats are back, and Saint Etienne, which was named not for a holy person, but for a French soccer team that football nut Stanley admired, can take encouragement from the success of several more recent wisp-pop arrivals. Among them are the Cardigans, Stereolab and Portishead--bands that also are part of the broader late 1990s trend toward chart dominance by the female voice.

Ironically, Saint Etienne now records for Sub Pop, the Seattle label that fostered grunge 10 years ago. The band played six big-city dates last fall after the release of “Good Humor,” its first new album since 1994. Now it is showing its prolific streak again, having just issued an EP, “Places to Visit,” in advance of a 14-concert trek that ends this weekend with shows in Pomona and West Hollywood. Cracknell and Wiggs are accompanied by a six-piece ensemble, including two female backup singers to feather the airy sound.

Stanley stays home; he renounced live performance some time back, and while his bandmates tour, he is working on tracks for the trio’s next album.

Saint Etienne’s absence from the U.S. scene apparently has made its fans grow fonder, Cracknell said.

“The enthusiasm from the audience has been overwhelming. It’s nice to feel so appreciated. You wonder whether they’ve been waiting eight years, and it’s all pent up.”

“Good Humor” and “Places to Visit” reflect pent-up creative energies. In 1994, the three members decided to take a year off; that stretched to a four-year gap between albums as Wiggs and Stanley, who are childhood friends, ran a subsidiary label for EMI, and Cracknell recorded a solo album.

They returned a year ago with “Good Humor,” their most song-oriented, pure-pop leaning album to date. Cracknell said the title was inspired by a photo of Brian Wilson, an Olympian of pure-pop beauty and craftsmanship, wearing a Good Humor ice cream vendor’s hat.

Saint Etienne’s songs, written by the three members in various collaborative combinations, are not deeply probing statements that excavate the matters closest to their hearts. The band has been criticized for being too much about cool stylishness rather than emotional substance. But for those who enjoy pure-pop moments that focus on small, recognizably human situations, the band’s work is a refreshing breeze.

Cracknell admits the three members are fools for lightweight stuff that may not pack much weight with most critics and historians of pop.

“We like to play a game in pubs: put records on the jukebox, and if something comes on which is pretty uncool, and you love the record [nevertheless], you have to own up.” Cracknell said she has confessed affection for “bubble gum and plenty of embarrassing things,” notably “Up Where We Belong,” the schmaltzy Joe Cocker/Jennifer Warnes love theme from “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

Cracknell also is a Neil Diamond fan by birthright, the enthusiasm handed down from her father; her parents’ collection of more substantial fare such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones also was part of her indoctrination into rock.

Fitting Words

to Musical Moods

Saint Etienne’s current single, “Sylvie,” is a typically light confection that owes a lot to Abba’s “Dancing Queen,” although it puts a twist and a spin on the Swedes’ swooning luster. The opening line is “Seventeen, high school queen/Yeah, you’re pretty cute, I concede.” Cracknell goes on to flesh out the role of an older sister who fears losing her boyfriend to little sister’s charms.

The tale is purely fanciful, said the singer. So is “We’re in the City,” a dreamy disco tune from the new EP, in which Cracknell sings of a magical, nighttime urban landscape in which deserted, post-midnight streets turn into a romantic zone where “your footsteps float in the air.”

In real life, Cracknell says, you won’t find her feet floating, racing, or otherwise ambulating empty, darkened city streets. “We write a lot of of songs like that, where the words just fit the mood of the music. I never walk anywhere in any city alone at night.”

“Good Humor” marked somewhat of a departure for Saint Etienne as the band downplayed its techno side, forsaking the instrumentals that usually dot its repertoire and concentrating on a more organic pure-pop approach.

“We wanted to make an album of songs that were all potential singles,” Cracknell said. “It wasn’t a case where we wanted them all to be hits, just well-crafted pop songs, with a lot of care and attention to the writing.”

The subsequent “Places to Visit” EP mixes pop tunes--the smoothly cooing “52 Pilot” calls to mind the mid-1980s hit, “Captain of Her Heart”--with gauzy or bubbling techno instrumentals. Cracknell says the band aims to strike a similar balance on its next album.

No Egos or

Hard Edges

Instrumental numbers, such as the new EP’s “Ivyhouse,” can narrow Cracknell’s role to singing pastel window dressing--in this case, “doo-doo-doo-doo-da-da-da-das” delivered in a coolly dreamy, Suzanne Vega-like “Tom’s Diner” voice. Does that leave her feeling shoved aside or underused?

“We don’t have issues like that,” she said. “Within the band it’s been very peaceful. There are no egos. I really like doing the vocal-effect stuff [on instrumentals]. It feels quite creative.”

Even without big returns in America, Saint Etienne has done well enough in Britain and Europe to sustain itself comfortably, Cracknell said. The band has had a handful of British hits nestling just outside the Top 10, including “Sylvie” and “The Bad Photographer” (which has a classic 1960s feel a la the Zombies and the Kinks) from “Good Humor.”

“We make a nice living, but I couldn’t possibly retire,” Cracknell said. “We’re in a position where it’s possible to make records we want to make. We’re under no pressure to make a record to please a record company, or to follow up a hit single. It’s quite a nice place to be.”

* Saint Etienne, the Autumns and DJ Kid Loco play Friday at the Glass House, 200 W. 2nd St, Pomona. 7:15 p.m. $12. (909) 469-5802 (club) or (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster). Also Saturday at the House of Blues, 8430 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. 10 p.m. $16.50. (323) 848-5100.