« 6 am, it's raining down on the capital, and while most people are about to enter the automaton, the last opus of B R OAD WAY is playing on my stereo… Opening a beer, I recount the itinerary of a band which is about to become essential listening…

After a first album in the realms of experimental in 2004, the Saint-Etienne band, gradually assuming their affinity with pop music, went on to release a preliminary step in their mutation: the unanimously critically acclaimed encounter with Angil under the pseudonym The John Venture. I remember discovering them at the “Printemps de Bourges”, in a packed concert hall their show had totally turned upside down… Then I recall the very first sensation, in 2008 when listening to their second album, Enter the Automaton … Surprise, excitation and some serious questions … They proved to my colleagues and I that they knew where they were heading, and that the big boss outfit they wore on stage for The John Venture not only suited them but was naturally relevant in terms of what was coming next… Enter the Automaton showed us all that B R OAD WAY deserved their seat alongside references like The Notwist or Why? among the guild of rich and intriguing projects.

Hardly surprising then, that in an interview at Abbey Road's renowned studios during the remastering session of Gang Plank, Fabb told me that, for B R OAD WAY, working with a string quartet, for a show and an EP, was a total fantasy…