Wiki
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Release Date
16 September 1991
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Length
13 tracks
Foxbase Alpha is the debut album by British band Saint Etienne, released in 1991.
The album was recorded in a style which is close to the house music sound of the time, but songs like Nothing Can Stop Us and Wilson display the group's characteristic love of '60s pop and several samples. Longer songs like Stoned to Say the Least and Like the Swallow are reminiscent of ambient house akin to The Orb. Like its follow-up So Tough, Foxbase Alpha's songs are bridged by samples from films or by short songs. At the time of recording, Sarah Cracknell was not fully part of group, and as a result she does not sing on Only Love Can Break Your Heart, which is sung by Moira Lambert.
Foxbase Alpha was shortlisted for the inaugural Mercury Music Prize.
The album includes one of the group's best-known songs: a cover of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart. The cover is relatively faithful to the original but is arranged in 4/4 (as opposed to the original's waltz time), with a driving piano-bass-drum section. Andrew Weatherall later remixed the song to further emphasise the dub bassline; this remix was featured on both releases of the single and on the compilation Casino Classics. The follow-up single Kiss and Make Up is also a (comparatively obscure) cover version of a song written and originally recorded by The Field Mice. Ian Catt was the engineer/co-producer on both versions. Carnt Sleep contains bass lines lifted completely from Wicked Cant Run This Dub by Glen Brown & King Tubby, and Nothing Can Stop Us, one of the group's most famous singles, features a very prominent sample of Dusty Springfield's track, I Can't Wait to See My Baby's Face, from her 1967 album Where Am I Going?. "Nothing Can Stop Us" was later covered by Kylie Minogue.
The UK release omits People Get Real and Kiss and Make Up, both of which later appeared on the collection You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone. By the time of the U.S. release of the album, the group had rerecorded "Kiss and Make Up" with Cracknell, and thus included it on the album.
The young woman on the cover of Foxbase Alpha, Celina Nash, also turns up in Saint Etienne's 1993 album So Tough; she is the waitress that can be heard on Chicken Soup. She is also in the video for the Pulp song Babies.
The dialogue heard in the track Etienne Gonna Die is from the movie House of Games.
Professional Reviews
★★★☆☆ - AllMusic
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