24 years since their last album, it’s pleasing to have Everything But The Girl back. That voice! They were conceived amidst post-post-punk “new pop” conceptualism, consistently made hit albums for 15 years, and only quit because they’d become bored of the naff entertainment industry circus. Happily, as only happens with a few bands who reappear after decades, Fuse does not disappoint.
Also happily, it’s not the sound of a once-successful unit settling on their laurels. In the period since they were last Everything But The Girl, Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn have written compulsive books and embarked on impressive solo adventures. They’ve not been in retirement. They bring a live-wired, active, playful spirit of creative hunger to their new music. They were a group born of jazz, but were last heard on an electronic record, flavoured by the club explosion of the 1990s. Fuse brings jazz abstraction to downtempo electronica. “Trip hop” it is not.
Working with studio collaborator Bruno Ellingham, the duo create backing tracks that are stark, spiky and sparse, with Thorn’s uniquely recognisable voice offering warm, melancholic counterpoint. The album’s opening lyrics, on the bass-buzzy, twitchy wakener “Nothing Left to Lose” are “I need a thicker skin/This pain keeps getting in”. ChatGBT might posit this as an EBTG couplet, but that’s surely what EBTG fans want? And context is all.
In any case, as the album progresses, the lyrics go off on strange and wonderful tangents. Check the delightful “No One Knows We’re Dancing”: “First up, this is Fabio/He drives in from Torino/Parking tickets litter his Fiat Cinquecento” (the lyrics to the closer, “Karaoke”, some sung in Thorn’s huskiest cabaret whisper, are especially enjoyable).
But it’s the way the words synch with the music that makes it special, ranging from the raw-boned electro-soul of “Time and Time Again”, to the deep house roll of “Caution to the Wind”. Much of it also emanates something deeper and more mysterious, recognisable songs, yes, but with an ambient intrigue, enigmatic and spacey, occasional floating piano motifs amidst wash, recalling Brian Eno, Laraaji and, sometimes, those final two Bowie albums.
I wish I could live longer with Fuse before writing this. It feels like it has more to give, as if I have more to say, that descriptions of each song’s curiosities would be worthwhile. A grower, then? One rarely knows. Right now, it's original, current, surprising, and quietly more-ish.
Below: Watch Everything But The Girl play "Run a Red Light" live for BBC 6Music
