When Saint Etienne’s Bob Stanley talks about their forthcoming album “Words and Music by Saint Etienne”, he affectionately refers to the “strange magic” of pop. About the special alchemy that transmutes even the most mundane of experiences - walking home with the headphones on at night, sitting in a bedroom with your friends in the day, getting ready to go out on the weekend - into a lingering moment of seamless enchantment, one that resonates for the rest of your life.Saint Etienne, you see, are a band who have had an immutable and enduring relationship with pop music and that pristine pop moment. From the distinctly English sonic collages of their groundbreaking debut “Foxbase Alpha” through to the darker folk-inflected turns of “Tiger Bay” and even the glacial electronic landscapes of “Sound of Water”, the history of pop has clearly had a powerful impression on the trio of Pete Wiggs, Sarah Cracknell and Bob Stanley, with the result being that for this, their ninth studio album, they have assembled what constitutes a long form aural essay explicitly exploring the throughline of themes and memories triggered by music which has run through their entire body of work.