A little off topic … I have been listening to Tracey Thorn’s new album, Love and its opposite. Here are several things …
- It has been available for listening for a while on the label site, and is embedded elsewhere. Videos of live home recordings are available for some songs (here is one for example). Her Twitter bio is “The official home of Tracey Thorn, singer, gardener, bedsit disco queen”.
- Thorn’s output is not prolific. She does not tour. The New Yorker writes about her: “Both the album’s themes and how it was made suggest a model that may become increasingly popular: the semi-professional musician.” The singer is quoted: “I just want to make it and then get back to my other life”. That other life is shared with Ben Watt, her partner of many years, with whom she performed as Everything But the Girl, and their three children.
- And that other life is the inspiration for the songs. According to the Guardian, she captures “the dismay of early middle age” in those around her. Her own family experience appears as well: ‘Hormones’ is a song about her relationship with her daughter.
Maybe nothing truly exceptional, but it seems very …. contemporary.
