Buzzin' Fly Vinyl & CDs

Review: By the time they released "Amplified Heart" in 1994, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn had spent a decade churning out admired but relatively commercially unsuccessful "lite-jazz" albums. Then, on the back of a string of on-point club remixes (Todd Terry's chart-topping version of "Missing" included), the set surprisingly became a runaway success. To celebrate the album's 25th birthday, "Amplified Heart" has been given the audiophile reissue treatment. It suits the album's gently breezy, emotion-rich feel, with Thorn's evocative, lovelorn vocals perfectly matching Watt's sunset-friendly blend of acoustic guitars, soft-touch double bass, trip-hop style beats and Balearic-minded electronics. It remains one of the duo's greatest albums and should be in every discerning listener's collection.

Review: When it came to following up their surprise 1994 hit album "Amplified Heart", Everything But The Girl's Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn decided to rip up the rulebook and do things differently. Previously, their music has been considered, downtempo and - whisper it quietly - Balearic. 1996's "Walking Wounded" retained their inherent beauty and sense of melancholia, but updated their musical blueprint to include far more influences from (then) contemporary dance music. As this half-speed re-mastered reissue proves, they largely hit the spot, with warm deep house cut "Wrong", the sparkling drum and bass pop of the title track and the similarly minded "Big Deal" standing out.

Review: Back in 1984 music bible NME ranked Eden 20th best album of that year. Skip forward nearly 40 more and it has lost none of its unique charm and intoxicating sense of personality, bringing in an array of elements that weren't par for the course in those days and largely still aren't.

Everything But the Girl's first album, it arrived four years before 1988's groundbreaking Idlewild - by which time their acoustic instrumentation fully shared the space with dance synthesisation - and was considered part of a long-since almost-forgotten sub-canon, sophisti-pop. Bringing elements of jazz, bossa nova, and jangly indie together, it also aimed a sucker punch at the eyes of critics with lead single 'Each & Every One', in which Tracey Thorn focuses anger from being frequently ignored and patronised for being female into a volley of poetic, deceptively laidback lyrical fury.

Review: Everything But The Girl have transposed themselves from fragile indie pioneers to cross-fertilising their unique songwriting with drum & bass and house in the 90s, with the likes of 'Walking Wounded' becoming unexpected dancefloor anthems. True experimenters, the duo of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt now continue to tap into today's zeitgeist - making their comeback in 2023, and arriving without prior announcement, this time they turned their tender production choices to styles such as future house and UK garage. Echoes of Bicep and Overmono teem on this record, as heartfelt retellings of personal strife and brushes with death make up its lyrical subjects.

Review: The word is out, EBTG are back. The long-serving combination of Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt have moved through many phases, from their exquisite indie pop era of the 80s to the chart-topping club dalliances and premier league remixes of the 90s. Now they return with a fresh sound on this, their eleventh album, which feels wholly contemporary as well as carrying on their instinct for heart-rending songwriting, all led by Thorn's unmistakable croon. Lead single 'Nothing Left To Lose' sets the tone with a strident, bass-heavy beat that certainly doesn't try to recreate past glories, and it's still a powerful song first and foremost. This revamped approach yields an abundance of magic moments across the whole of Fuse, a stellar return from long time treasures of British independent music.