At Maida Vale (RSD 24)

Everything But The Girl’s ‘At Maida Vale EP’ is made up of four tracks recorded in April 2023 at the BBC’s famous Maida Vale Studios – Run A Red Light, Single and When You Mess Up, first broadcast on Gideon Coe’s BBC 6 Music show; and Nothing Left To Lose first heard on Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 2 show. All the recordings are versions of tracks on the band’s current album, ‘Fuse”, except Single which first appeared on their platinum 1996 album, Walking Wounded. The session was the only live performance that the band did around the release of their new album.

Speaking about the EP, Tracey Thorn says: “It was exciting returning to such a famous studio to record these tracks. It was almost 40 years since our first John Peel Session there. The idea was to start by approaching all four as live piano and vocal takes. “Nothing Left To Lose was then left stripped back as a complete contrast to the original,” adds Ben Watt, “while for the others we added a few one-take overdubs of synth, guitar, drums and backing vocals to capture both the spontaneity of a session but a flavour of the original album arrangements.”

Everything But The Girl’s new album Fuse charted at Number 3 in the UK Official Album Chart, the highest position of the band’s career. The Guardian was among several top publications to post a 5-star review (‘Still staking out pop’s frontier after 40 years … a comeback worth waiting for’). Pitchfork called it the duo’s ‘triumphant new album … bewitching and soul-baring’. High level support has also come at radio (two singles on the BBC 6 Music A-List Playlist) and at key editorial DSP playlists (New Music Friday, All New Indie, Altar, Metropolis, The Other List, Loops).