Blogarhythms

Despite my predilection for things “Alternative” and “Indie” I don’t own many Indie/Alternative records. Scratch that… I own a ton of Indie/Alternative records if your definition of “record” extends to compact discs. But when it comes to the classic definition of “record,” a flat vinyl disc, I own very few. This could be chalked-up to my spending most of my record-shopping time digging through the dollar-bins in the Soul, Funk, and Jazz sections of used record-stores, which isn’t a place one’s likely to find old “Alternative” records. It might also have something to do with my previously outlined ban on buying “new-seeming” records from the ’80s, which happens to coincide with the salad-days of Alternative, independent, and College Radio-oriented Rock and Pop. Either way, a record like Eden, the debut album from sophisticated Alterna-Pop duo Everything But the Girl, is sort of of an anomaly in my collection.

I say “sort of an anomaly” because their later dance-oriented music was part of the office soundtrack when I was hanging out at Brown Eyed Intelligence nearly a decade ago, I own 12′’s featuring dance remixes of the band’s songs, and both Tracey Thorn’s solo work and Ben Watt’s experiments in DJ culture with his Buzzin’ Fly imprint have a place in my music library. I also say “sort of” because the Eden LP, released shortly after Thorn and Watt, at the time label-mates with separate projects on the independent Cherry Red Records, met while attending England’s University of Hull, is in essence a Jazz album. And there’s nothing strange about me owning a Jazz album. But it’s also an important vinyl document of the then-burgeoning Indie-Pop genre, which sets it apart from all the Jazz records in my crates, and all the contemporary Indie-Pop CDs on my shelves. The fact that I found it while rummaging through my mother-in-law’s dusty, poorly-stored Reggae albums makes it that much more “special.”

The truth of the matter though is that Eden should be considered “special” regardless. Not due to any extraneous circumstances. But to the fact that the music vocalist/guitarist Thorn, multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Watt, and their cast of collaborators, calling on an assortment of Latin-Jazz, Soul, cabaret, Folk and jangly Pop/Rock influences, committed to wax is breathtaking. I have a soft-spot for the lush, sensuous elegance of Bossa-Nova, so the tunes that feature the bubbling percussion, feathery guitar, and swaying rhythms of Brazilian Jazz are my favorites. Album opener “Each and Everyone” and b-side winner “I Must Confess” impress the most with beautifully orchestrated arrangements backing Thorn’s acerbically lovelorn lyrics delivered in alternately breathy come-hither tones and impassioned belting. While “The Spice of Life” on the other hand stands out for not sounding like a Getz/Gilberto or Charlie Byrd throwback, instead stripping the soulful bounce of the girl-group sound down to the basics of simple percussion, guitar, organ and Watt and Thorn’s harmonizing.

Eden is precious and pretty throughout, the sort of record you’ll want to put on while working around the house, only to find yourself running to the turntable to skip back to the beginning, or to flip it over and keep the music going with only the shortest interruption. It also illustrates that the key to changing styles and staying relevant over a lengthy career as EBTG has may be coming versatile, but undeniably classic, right out of the gate.

-El Keter