I need a thicker skin - this pain keeps getting in

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's top 50 albums of 2023

#28 : Fuse - Everything But The Girl

The year’s most surprising return, 24 years after their last record, and a total return to form. Everything But the Girl’s 11th album essayed the precariousness of post-pandemic life through strikingly contemporary, club-inflected melancholy: desolate post-dubstep, staticky electronics, Auto-Tuned alienation. Tracey Thorn’s wise, weary voice cut through it all, clear as a long-exposure photo of car lights in the dark, illuminating the decaying world, growing suspicion and fragmentation of community, and suggesting, in the unassailable tenderness of her melodies and outlook, that intimacy and grace are the best bulwarks we’ve got. That and – as she puts it on No One Knows We’re Dancing and Karaoke – getting lost on a dark dancefloor. 

And finally, we get to the first album on the list I've listened to all the way through (I had listened to a couple of tracks from Chaos For The Fly, but gave up on it) - I like a lot of what EBTG have done over the years so checked it out and I didn't mind it, but it didn't have enough to drag me back.  Let's give it another listen to be fair though...

Yeah, it's OK.  It's got a nice overall downbeat vibe, but I would have preferred it to have a bit more variety to it - by way of comparison, I much prefer Tracey Thorn's '07 solo album Out Of The Woods.  But if you like their Missing-era stuff then this is well worth a shot, I'd suggest.  It's not a nice album cover though.

Wikipedia tells us this is their eleventh album and their first since Elemental in '99 (which I don't think I've ever heard).  Apart from that, there's very little of interest there but the critics were very nice about it - everyone was pleasantly surprised to see them back on the scene.  It's also the most successful album we've seen on the list considering UK chart position with it getting to #3 - its performance varied in other countries from #10 in Belgium to #118 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" Tracey Thorn, Alison Goldfrapp, Jessie Ware and Natalie Merchant - a set of ladies not to be messed with!  I enjoyed listening to this album and it was nice to see them back, but I didn't love it as much as I was hoping to.  

#27 : Changing Channels - Pangaea

Hessle Audio, the British label founded by Pangaea, Pearson Sound and Ben UFO, have now spent 15 years chewing through the boundary between techno and bass music, championing sounds that are knottily cerebral and airhorn-worthy all at once. The sweet, glistening glacé cherry on the birthday cake was this album from Pangaea (AKA Kevin McAuley), who pushed the populist side of their sound harder than ever as he swerved through speed garage, deep house, ambient techno, hard trance and beyond. The cut-up chatter and fidget-house bass of Installation made it the dance track of the summer, but it’s just one of four infernally catchy vocal cuts here, while the pure instrumentals are just as spry.

Techno/house/trance is an odd area for me - I love some of it and hate some of it, but I've got no idea what causes tracks to fall on one side of the line or the other and I don't have the terminology to explain it either.  So who knows what we're going to get here and what I'm going to be able to say about it!?!

Hmmm - it's OK.  Nice in places, but it doesn't generally stand out for me and it's also a bit repetitive at times.  Do I have anything else to say about it?  Probably not - if you like this sort of thing (whatever it's officially called) maybe check it out, but it didn't work for me - sorry Mr Pangaea.  I did like the album cover though!

Wikipedia tells me he's a dubstep artist (really?) but apart from that it has the biggest load of nonsense - I'm guessing they didn't really know what to say about it either.  I read the critical comment section and I'm not clear whether they liked it or not (but surely they did?) and there's no comment at all on the commercial reception (and we all know what that means!).

"Customers also listened to" Effy, Celia, Jordan Nocturne and Cour T - yup, no idea about any of them.  As, it won't surprise you to hear, is true for most of the artists in this genre (whatever you call it) but this didn't quite hit the spot for me.

So, two albums that were slightly disappointing for different reasons - I kinda liked both of them a bit without totally liking them.  However, it was definitely a pleasure to see EBTG back though and I suspect if this was their first album I'd be much nicer about it - but it wasn't so I only hope they can forgive me.

#30/29 - Probably the best pair so far
#26/25/24 - One of these is gorgeous