Everything But the Girl, Fuse ★★★★☆
Fuse is the first new release from Everything But The Girl in 24 years but it would be wrong to call it a reunion, because the married duo never actually broke up. Singer Tracey Thorn and instrumentalist Ben Watt met at the University of Hull in the early 80s and have been a music making couple ever since.
Their slow burn success took them through jazz pop, indie soul, and acoustic singer-songwriter formulations before a 1994 electronic remix by New York DJ Todd Terry of heartsore folktronica ballad Missing turned them into multimillion-selling mainstream stars. It helped establish a soulful electronic blend that became ubiquitous in the 90s. There was a time when you couldn’t escape their mellifluous melodies in coffee shops and dinner parties, spawning a brand of chilled-out songcraft still hugely prevalent today. What always set EBTG apart was a tension inherent in their work, arty, intellectual and underground instincts that refused to pander to the pop world.
Uncomfortable in the spotlight, the couple retired EBTG at the end of the decade, to focus on domestic life and raising two children. They have kept modestly busy, with Thorn releasing four solo albums of sophisticated songcraft, and Watt DJing, running record labels and creating electronic dance music under assorted guises. Both have written insightful books about their lives and art. Not exactly your typical pop duo, then.
But here they are again in tandem, picking up where they left off in a sparkling flurry of electronic beats and melancholy soul, with smart, understated songs focusing on the minutiae of ordinary lives. Opening track, Nothing Left To Lose, is a gorgeous demonstration of the simpatico sound the duo conjure. The electronic beats are separated and crisp, with the gliding elegance of Thorn’s deliciously cool voice offering perfect counterpoint.
They began working on the album during the pandemic (Watt had to be shielded due to suffering from an autoimmune condition) and the song’s lyrics hint at end times desperation (“Kiss me while the world decays”) yet the abiding feeling is of the reassurance of being with someone you love. It sets the tone for an album of philosophical musings on trust, faith, love and loss, peppered with nostalgic memories drawn from the couple’s own youthful nightlife on album highlights Run a Red Light and No One Knows We’re Dancing, when the future was open, and domesticity just a mirage on the horizon.
It is not all quite so easy on the ear. The album is dotted with experimental pieces which barely configure as songs, with Thorn singing over strange loops, manifesting internal ruminations of anxiety, whilst Watt rudely distorts her vocals with autotune. One of these, When You Mess Up, sounds like advice to an adult child: “Have a drink, talk too loud / Be a fool in a crowd / But forgive yourself” Thorn sings, adding (with the vocal equivalent of a shrug): “I hate people who give me advice.” There have been so many divorce albums in popular culture it has practically become a genre to itself, but I wonder if EBTG’s return now that their children have grown qualifies this as an Empty Nest album?
The starkness and delicacy of Watt’s arrangements are a pleasure throughout Fuse, where dance beats push subtly but firmly through electro atmospherics, whilst synthetic sounds warp and shift to shape spaces for his partner’s voice. The 60-year-old producer has clearly been keeping an aficionado’s ear on developments in digital electronica, and there is nothing particularly retro or dated about this comeback. Thorn’s voice has a timelessness that will always sound contemporary. She never strains or overemotes but lets her instinct for elegant melody and the understated intelligence of her lyrics carry the dramatic weight.
A reluctant live performer, on album closer Karaoke, Thorn sings about singing as a relief in and of itself: “What’s it for, well who knows? / You take a breath and here goes / You hit the highs and own the lows.” But even her lone spot on the karaoke stage has bigger implications: “Do you sing to heal the broken hearted? / Oh you know I do / Or do you sing to get the party started? / Oh I love that too.” Fuse is an album that tilts in both directions. Neil McCormick
