DVD

Everything But The Girl is a group that has always been a bit of an enigma to me. I have never heard any of their albums, but I consistently run into one of their songs on the odd movie soundtrack or occasional visit to the record store. I am always struck by how different one song sounds from the next, much like the brilliant work of Blur, and I assumed that this was because most of the songs that I have heard are B-sides, or as I stated before, tracks that were donated to compilations or soundtracks. This disc has ...eally helped me to pull my view of EBTG into focus. Surprisingly, my initial beliefs are correct… they are in fact a group whose sound is that they have no sound.

Now, that’s not entirely fair of me to say. After all, Tracey Thorn’s voice is unmistakable. That is a sound in itself, much like fellow songstress Natalie Merchant. However, this career-spanning collection of videos (nine in all) really shows how the group has evolved, from jazz to folk to pop to dancehall tunes. Personally, the newest stuff is by far my favorite. While the video for the Simon and Garfunkel cover “The Only Living Boy in New York” is fantastic (as is the song), it’s the inclusion of the electronic tracks that really get me interested in this band.