Customer Reviews

A Distant Shore

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Some albums you can listen to for a week or two.�@A good album can sound fresh for maybe a year, but I`ve been regularly listening to this for the last 17 years. And it still impresses me. So obviously anyone who likes the earlier Everything But the Girl and particularly those who always found Ben Watt a bit irritating should be interested. If you are a real fan you should also check out Tracy`s earlier still incarnation as one of the Marine Girls where you will find some sweet and youthful songs, but nothing quite as splendid as Distant Shore

As one who can appriciate Everything but the Girl pre-Todd Terry mix of "missing," this is a very enjoyable album. As EBTG moves to the icon status of this wonderful female voice behind Ben Watt's beats--constantly challenging the adult-contemporary audience, inspiring the dance/electronic world, as well as my girlfriend's father's (a man in his 50s) ears--it's nice to remember where they came from. Tracy and her guitar, a few vocal layers in the mixing--that's it. this album is beautiful in it's simplicity. Highpoints to enjoy while you relax or immerse in melancholia, is "new opened eyes" and her cover of lou reed's "femme fatale." you'll get this album if you love her mysterious vocals--a bit unrefined, lacking confidence, but wonderful.

OK, so I've read hundreds of reviews on hundreds of albums and many times thought about writing my own. Having heard many Everything But The Girl albums, I wasn't really expecting anything remakable about Tracey Thorn's solo debut, especially since it was just her and her guitar and I'm not a big fan of albums like this. But about 30 seconds into Small Town Girl I found myself being totally blown away and the album just kept getting better and better. I am a huge fan of just about every kind of music out there and I honestly have to say that of the 1,000 plus albums that I own, I find myself coming back to A Distant Shore over and over again. Never before have I heard a more beautiful marriage of voice and guitar. This is truly one of the most amazing albums I have ever heard. My only complaint is at just under 23 minutes, the album is way too short. Do yourself a favor and buy this album.

I got my vinyl copy when this album first came out in 1982/83 ... and how it has grown with time! Beauty is a rare thing. Here, the magic combination of the voice and words brings out a flow of youthful sensibility in a rather detached mood with strong emotional under-current. One has only to catch the first line of the opening SMALLTOWN GIRL "... This is all too much for such a smalltown girl ... ", the wayward yet vulnerable youth is there and immediate.

As for the guitar, how she has chosen the perfect chord voicing to sing with her! The guitar works perfectly in every song ( e.g. just see how the Cmaj7 in ordinary 3rd position changes beautifully to the bar-10 G7 in SIMPLY COULDN'T CARE. )

Do yourself a favour and get the album.

Just when the inimitable EBTG was forming, and in between her all-girl indie band Marine Girls sessions, Tracey Thorn found time to churn out a mini set of acoustic songs in 1982; just her voice and a guitar, and the end result is a charmingly timeless album that became the much-loved bedsit torch songstress's debut solo album. Her follow-up album "Out of the Woods" would only surface 25 years later, and it would seem like a whole different genre of electronic 80s dance pop throwback, the total antithesis of "A Distant Shore".

The songs on this album flow seamlessly from one to another, almost seguing into each other to form a dreamy landscape that befits the artwork of Tracey sitting pensively on a deckchair, staring into the distance. All the songs are marvellous, but highlights include "Plain Sailing", the misnomer "Too Happy" and the tragic-sounding Lou Reed cover "Femme Fatale".

The recording is raw and unadorned, and Thorn's voice is even not showy, to the point of being unemotional, but behind that, one can picture a young girl who's both a little awed by the newness of the world and equal parts jaded and cynical like a teenager would be. There are no shouts or loud hollers in this album, but the breezy feel of the album is anything but light and fluffy.

Tracey Thorn is my favorite female singer. I truly love her from my very heart. I love Tracey.