After a 24 year Hiatus …

Welcome  Back Ben and Tracey, after a 24 year hiatus … you didn’t kiss a BEAT!! EBTG (Everything But The Girl) are STILL one of my ALL time favorites. 

Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt put their duo Everything But the Girl on hold in 1999, at the height of their success, right after releasing Temperamental. They'd already turned down an offer to open for U2 on tour the year before; they wanted to start a family, so they turned their focus to that. While they raised three children, they each worked on solo projects; that way there was always one parent who could be focused on kids. Despite many offers to reform and remaining a couple (after 28 years together, they finally married in 2009 "at our accountant's suggestion"), they never felt a need to return to their group.

Then the pandemic hit and, like many people, Watt and Thorn found themselves with more time on their hands, and more time with each other. They began making music together again in Watt's home studio, but they kept the pressure off by calling the project TREN ("Tracey and Ben"). Soon, though, it became apparent what this was going to be. Everything But the Girl were back. “We found ourselves asking, ‘What does an Everything But the Girl album sound like? Should it sound like we did in 1985? Or in 1997?’,” Thorn told TIDAL magazine. "In the end, we wound up thinking, ‘We’re here and now. Let’s see what comes out.’”