Alasdair McLellan recasts the post-industrial landscapes of England as a gorgeous dreamworld in his inimitable style for Saint Etienne's Pond House. Then in Penlop he integrates iconic British locations - Blackpool's Golden Mile, the Severn Bridge - into domestic and intimate scenes of youthful boredom. 

Both the Pond House and Penlop promos are for tracks from the new Saint Etienne album I've Been Trying To Tell You, and are taken from McLellan's longform film of the same name to accompany the album, released in September.

McLellan has applied the distinctive aesthetic that has graced his fashion photography and commercials (for Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu and others) to scenes shot in unfashionably provincial places in the UK: Avebury, Grangemouth, Portmeirion, Doncaster - McLellan's home town - and more.

The theme of the album is a reflection upon the 1990s - the period after Saint Etienne's breakthrough with their debut album Foxbase Alpha - which they reflect back on with nostalgia and mull over the optimism and naivety of the times. And with all of the band's work, it's rooted in a specific vision on Britain.

McLellan's film allows the viewer the space to reflect upon these issues in the hypnotic pacing and repetition of his gorgeously composed images - graded by his regular colourist-collaborator Jamie Noble at Studio RM.

“My starting point was an interpretation of my memories from the time I first started to listen to Saint Etienne’s music," McLellan has explained.  

"Of course, it is an interpretation of what I was doing then while looking back at it now. At that time, I was a bored teenager in a village near Doncaster, South Yorkshire; it was a place where very little happened. I now look back at that time as something quite idyllic – even the boredom seems idyllic – and a big part of its soundtrack was Saint Etienne.”

The film I’ve Been Trying To Tell You is McLellan's first longform film project, and will premiere at NFT1 on the Southbank on 3rd September. Watch the trailer here.