Everything But The Girl - Eden

25 years ago this month I moved in with my first adult love. It wasn't permanent. Like all first things, it burned hot and bright, but lacked the fuel to warm us over time and flamed out quickly. Sadly we were too young to realize how cold it had gotten and took far too long to call it quits. That doesn't mean the initial warmth doesn't linger in memories of that time and place and the people we once were.

The week she and I moved in together this record was released (as a British import). Her affinity for smart pop prompted its purchase that week and it soundtracked our first year together, indelibly scoring that part of my life. That may be the reason I think of it so fondly, but I prefer to think the fondness has more to do with the music's intrinsic brilliance and its remarkable felicity for capturing the pain lovers inflict on one another, not by the things they say, but by the things they leave unsaid.

The debut of Tracy Thorn and Ben Watt, Eden, instigated the first, minor revival of all things Jobim & Gilberto and that early 60's bossa nova pop sound (interestingly, their effort two years later moved into the mid 60's and the lush orchestral pop reminiscent of Petula Clark). In a world that was filled with synth pop, the brazilian and latin rhythms that filled this record felt out of place and, simultaneously, more than welcome.

Thorn's vocals take centerstage, her crisp emotions laid out like a smoky photograph that evokes sense-memory, if not detail. But it is Watt's arrangements that hold the listener long enough to let the songs' meanings slip into the conciousness. Lazy beats, silky horns that arrive from nowhere, Charlie Byrd guitar lines, and sly, subtle lyrics that reveal too much of the pain in the one left behind; they all combine to coax you into lives where heartache gets buried in sleepless nights, desperate but unacknowledged gestures, and overflowing ashtrays.

When Nick Hornby half-satirically vents that we worry too much about the young being exposed to sex, drugs and violence through pop music, but care not one whit about the potential effects of the emotional suffering that plays out in virtually every pop song, this is what he's talking about. It is the pain of loving laid bare.

25 years on, and emotionally wracking as it may be, this record remains as soothing, assurred and lovely as it was the first time it hit the turntable. It carries memories and more. It will still stand tall another quarter century hence. A pop classic.

allmusic:

The debut effort by multi-instrumentalist Ben Watt and vocalist and songwriter Tracey Thorn took the alterna-pop world by surprise in 1985. And rightfully so. Watt's lush chamber orchestra jazzscapes, full of Brazilian bossa nova structures and airy horn charts, combined with Thorn's throaty alto singing her generation's version of the torch song, was a sure attraction for fans of sophisticated pop and vocal jazz. Featuring 12 tracks, the album has deeply influenced popular song structures since that time; this is evidenced in the work of more R&B-oriented acts such as Swing Out Sister and Tuck and Patti. The set opens with "Each and Everyone," a slow samba-flavored pop song. The song comes from the broken side of love, with Thorn entreating from the heart: "You try to show me heaven but then close the door...Being kind is just a way to keep me under your thumb/And I can cry because that's something we've always done." A trumpet fills her lines and makes them glide above Watt's Latin mix. Elsewhere, the folk bossa of "Fascination" is all the architecture Thorn needs to sink deep into her protagonist's brokenness. Guitars chime and stagger one another, slipping and sliding just above the bassline, and vanish into thin air. On "I Must Confess," a riff similar to "The Girl From Ipanema" locates Thorn next to a deep ringing upright bass and Watt's glissando guitar, played Charlie Byrd-style, before Nigel Nash punctures Thorn's vocal with a velvety tenor solo. Once again, the notion of loss, memory, and the resolve of the left half of a relationship to go on, carrying regret but not remorse, is absolutely breathtaking. Thorn continually meditated on broken relationships here, and that extended tome, which echoes through every song on the record, seems to have resonated with everyone who heard it. The set closes with Watt's vocal on "Soft Touch," a folksy pop song, illustrated with guitars, a fretless bass, and piano, that sounds like something from Supertramp in their better moments — and no, that's not a bad thing. His voice — while not nearly as dramatic as Thorn's — is wonderfully expressive, and his lyrics extend the feeling of Eden to its final whisper. This set proved itself to be an auspicious debut that testified to the beginning of a long and creatively rewarding partnership that has endured.

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