Love And Its Opposite is the third solo album from English singer/songwriter Tracey Thorn. Thorn is the familiar voice of the once huge UK band Everything But The Girl (1982-2000). Remember they had a hit “Missing” back in the day? Now Thorn’s previous success and talent has landed her with Berlin’s talented Ewan Pearson, (known for his work with Goldfrapp, Ladytron, Delphic and M83) as producer for Love And Its Opposite.
This album is about as personal as it gets. It appears to feature songs that are the confessional stories of Thorn’s life in recent years; including marriage with the track “Long White Dress”, divorce, growing older, love and loneliness. The loneliness Thorn has clearly endured is depicted in the dark and gloomy cover of Lee Hazlewood’s “Come On Home To Me”, featuring fantastic guest vocals of Jens Lekman. There is also a great cover of little known band, Unbending Trees lovely “You are a lover”. You know you have some music-world cred’ when you’re working with Lekman. Despite these serious topics and mellow moments the overall feeling of this album is somewhat upbeat, or at least optimistically hopeful. The track entitled “Why does the wind?” sums up the feel of the album perfectly; while there is no doubt some loneliness and pain, there is still pulsating beat pushing on and the lyrics in this song end with the simple line “Why not just kiss?”.
Thorn’s voice is as strong, warm and enchanting as in the dozen albums released with Everything But The Girl and couple with Marine Girls, if not better as its much more openly highlighted here. At times in this album Thorn’s voice reminds me of Annie Lennox, strong, feminine, deep and earthy (or perhaps its just the cool British accent?). The beautiful closing track of the album “Swimming” is a definite highlight. This poppy track features a Nashville cool cat by the name of Cortney Tidwell on drums and sugary sweet backing vocals. It ends the album on a positive note and expresses the poignant point of the album; things will always be changing and ending but “let’s carry on”, from what I can gather her sentiment for this album is to look forward to swimming, even though right now life may be making you tread water.
Love And Its Opposite will be released 14th of May through Strange Feeling and Inertia.
See www.traceythorn.com
(I did this review for www.thedwarf.com, if you dont know it check it out for reviews, photos and upcoming gig info!)
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