New Music: Le Concorde – Saint James

Music and history have a long and, from time to time, difficult relationship, but Saint James by Le Concorde has the two in perfect harmony.

The song has an 80s art pop sensibility to it, but that shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, as Le Concorde main man Stephen Becker has drawn musicians from Scritti Politti and The Psychedelic Furs to work on his project over the years.

And while his vocals have a similar sound and phrasing to Paddy McAloon, that quality is heightened by the presence of Scottish producer Calum Malcolm, who has worked with The Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout.

I could go on listing names – the song and upcoming Second Mansion album have a stellar cast. But the vision is all down to Becker and his ability to write songs that are complex while never straying far from a pop sound. Sophisti-pop is a good tag for Saint James but doesn’t get across how good, how fun, the song is.

Says Beck about the track and upcoming LP, “Saint James was actually how this whole album got started. I had the initial inspiration for it on the streets of Compostela. In 2019 I was in Santiago de Compostela in Spain, which is James’s resting place and, in a sense, his home on earth.”

“There is a massive, breath-taking cathedral there where his tomb is. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from all over the world come there every year. The tradition is to hike to Compostela, and the length of the hikes varies. Some people hike for over a month, passing through the Pyrenees in southern France.”

For the latest news on the Second Mansions album, follow Le Concorde on Instagram. Saint James can be streamed on SoundCloud and Spotify.

Header photo by Christopher Brown