NEWS
Everything But The Girl have announced that they will be playing their first shows in 25 years in London soon.
It comes after January 2023 saw the band return with their first new music in 24 years, dropping the stirring single ‘Nothing Left To Lose’.
It marked the lead single to their then-upcoming new studio album titled ‘Fuse’, and was followed by other singles including ‘Caution To The Wind’ and ‘Run A Red Light’.
Now, after sharing their comeback album in April 2023, the band have now confirmed that they will be taking to the stage again for their first live shows in a quarter of a century.
They made the announcement on social media, confirming that they would be taking to the stage at an intimate London venue next month for two back-to-back shows. The gigs will see singer Tracey Thorn and multi-instrumentalist Ben Watt joined by Rex Horan on bass, and tickets are already sold out.
“Hi, all. We play two shows at London’s MOTH club, Apr 6 & 7,” they began in the update. “Just us two, with Rex Horan on bass. No club bangers, just a chill folk-tronic vibe. Tickets offered to UK mailing list at 9am today. Sold out instantly. We hope to do more soon.”
“We loved making ‘Fuse’ together in 2022, and we wanted to do something else. And that slowly turned into a conversation about playing live again. When we pictured how, we realised we just wanted to play a few songs – including some we’d never done before – in a small club. Front room, friends and family vibe.”
The indie-electronica duo released 10 albums before they split in 2000, their last before the reunion being 1999’s ‘Temperamental’.
Their most successful record was 1996’s ‘Walking Wounded’, and they also scored top 10 singles with that album’s title track along with the likes of ‘Wrong’ and the Todd Terry remix of ‘Missing’. When they parted ways, Tracey Thorn enjoyed a solo career while also working as a writer. During that time, Ben Watt became an international DJ, remixer, solo artist and label boss.
Speaking to NME about their comeback, Watt said: “We’ve never been a particularly nostalgic band – we’ve always been known for making a different record every time. Sometimes that’s meant going against the mainstream, but we just try to keep ourselves interested and keep things contemporary.
“We wanted to come back with something modern-sounding,” he added. “We’re not out there on the heritage trail doing ‘best of’ tours or playing arenas. We just wanted to make a piece of work that would sound great now in 2023. That was the driver.”
Upon its release, ‘Fuse’ was given a glowing four-star review by NME and described as “immensely satisfying”.
“Beyond the release of this project, the band have little in the way announced for upcoming shows, but the strength of their return on ‘Fuse’ is plenty,” it read. “This is the rare occasion of a reunion between collaborators – as partners, parents, creators – that proves how big an impact their music has made on the landscape that has followed, and to enjoy and seize this moment while it’s here.”
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
