Amplified Heart

About

A line from this spare album’s first track, “Rollercoaster,” says it all: “I’m not coming out until I feel I’m ready/I’m not running out while my heart’s unsteady.” <i>Amplified Heart Deluxe</i> is about stepping into a new world, a new chance, a new skin. Which makes sense for both members of Everything But the Girl, a duo from Hull, England. Late in 1991 member Ben Watt became so sick he was put in an induced coma; it turned out he had a rare, life-threatening auto-immune disease. While he slowly recovered, his partner and fellow band member, Tracey Thorn, sang on Massive Attack’s global hit, “Protection.” When they were able to record again, Everything But the Girl returned with a glorious, sad, transparent, largely acoustic record that made it clear how much had changed. Thorn is a master of doing a little to achieve a lot—she just leans on a word, or roughs up the contours of a line, and she has you under her spell. And on songs like “Get Me” and “Two Stars,” she reaches new levels of not-even-trying. Often minimalism feels remote, detached, but here it is presented as if by a friend in need. With a glint of folk rock (members of Fairport Convention and Pentangle appear) and a glimmering thread of electronics, EBTG turned their generally acoustic pop into a soothing pastoral futurism. It feels like stumbling out of a tunnel into the middle of a new day.

via Apple Music