Ben Watt
North Marine Drive

This record kills me and delights me, for more than twenty years. It kills me because it is sad, from the first notes you realize you're going into the cold dressed lightly, like the little game of the boys on the cover, in those rigid climates, and it delights me because it is beautiful, from the first guitar notes you understand you're about to listen to a masterpiece. We are before Everything But The Girl in a past that seems really distant. The songs all pass by cold already in atmosphere, then add the chills they still trigger today, there's no blanket that can help. Ben plays the guitar beautifully, giving the impression of caressing only a few strings at a time, but creating very sweet sounds, rarely a piano is added to complete a work that needs nothing else. The songs are reminiscent of salt, alcohol, the Atlantic Ocean, beautiful and difficult partners. And as far as I'm concerned, also of university, carefreeness, old cars, but that's a personal fact. The record opens with "On Box Hill", a little march with some percussion and a bit of rhythm, but don't be fooled right after "Some Things Don't Matter" plunges you into the atmospheres I described before, only guitar and the beautiful voice of Ben Watt saying "This boy knows how to feel" and if you're in a tough relationship at that moment you're done for, unexpectedly a sax comes in to finish you off. From far away comes the voice of "Lucky One" trying to reconstruct what's left of you, and it continues with "Empty Bottles" and "North Marine Drive" both beautiful up to "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" which despite the title gives a breath of warm air between one cold shock and another. "Slipping Slowly" is the most eighties track on the record, even in rhythm, and after the instrumental "Another Conversation With Myself" it closes with "A Girl in Winter" in case you've warmed up too much. The shadow of Robert Wyatt, a guest on the album, is felt but does not prevail. The following year would be the year of "Eden" with Tracey Thorn, sealing a season of high-level songwriting.