Everything But The Girl tell us about reflective new album ‘Blue Reservoir’ – inspired by the magic of Moth

Everything But The Girl have announced details of their new album ‘Blue Reservoir’, inspired by their residency shows at London’s legendary Moth Club. Check out new single ‘Young And Dumb’ below, along with our interview with the duo.

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The indie-electronica icons surprised the world back in 2023 when they returned with the acclaimed ‘Fuse‘, their first new album in 24 years. The married couple – formed of singer Tracey Thorn and multi-instrumentalist Ben Watt, who previously released 10 albums before they downed tools as a musical unit in 2000 – shocked fans even more, when they then chose to finally return to the stage, performing intimate, stripped-back residency shows at the 300-capacity Moth Club in Hackney.

It was the unique alchemy and atmosphere of those gigs that inspired the duo’s 12th album ‘Blue Reservoir’, which is announced today (Wednesday October 28) with launch single ‘Young And Dumb’.

Watt concordou que essa vibração com toques latinos era “um som realmente confortável para voltar”.

Check out the rest of our interview with Thorn and Watt below, where they told us about returning to the music industry, their search for the modern, grappling with life and time on ‘Blue Reservoir’, and why we need to club venues like Moth Club “surviving and thriving”.

NME: Hello Everything But The Girl. It’s been three years since we last spoke to announce ‘Fuse’. How was it getting back in the trenches after 24 years.

Tracey Thorn: “Foi incrível porque não antecipamos por muito tempo. Chegou bem rápido e, antes que percebêssemos, já tínhamos um disco. ‘Fuse’ foi há três anos, e mesmo desde então avançamos para algo novo.”.

Tendo feito isso e batido um recorde, que surpreendeu as pessoas, voltamos a tocar ao vivo, o que surpreendeu novamente. Já avançamos para um lugar diferente.

Ben Watt: “There was a lot happening in the run-up to ‘Fuse’, it just didn’t happen to be Everything But The Girl. There were Tracey’s books, solo projects and me running [label] Buzzin’ Fly – we were always busy, but hadn’t done anything as Everything But The Girl for a while.”.

We spoke last time about how many modern acts you’ve inspired like The xx, Jungle, Daughter, FKA Twigs and beyond, but what was it like to then be back among them with something quite contemporary itself.

Watt: “We don’t really think about music like that.”.

Thorn: “We’re usually preoccupied with just doing our thing, which most artists are. You keep an eye on what other people are doing, and that’s interesting, but you have to stay quite single-minded and focussed on your own stuff.

Se você começar a se deixar envolver demais por ideias de influência ou status, isso vai distorcer um pouco. Você tem que tentar tirar isso da sua cabeça e simplesmente perguntar: 'É uma boa ideia.

What conversations did you have around ‘Blue Reservoir’ in terms of what you wanted to do and where you felt the music taking you.

Thorn: O verdadeiro ponto de partida foi voltarmos a tocar ao vivo no ano passado e fazer esses pequenos shows no The Moth Club. Quando começamos, apenas agendamos dois shows, sem ter tocado ao vivo juntos há 25 anos.

It was a big milestone. We thought those two would feel amazing, but it’s turned into a long-running residency and we’ve gone about 30 shows there now.

Watt: “It was the intimacy of those shows that really took us by surprise, and just the connection. You’re so close to people in a venue like that.”.

Thorn: “And the simplicity. You weren’t on a great big stage, there’s not a lot of production, not loads of stuff that was programmed and complicated so that if it goes wrong the show collapses.

Você pensa, ‘Há 200 pessoas lá fora, nós estamos aqui com uma guitarra, seja o que for, podemos tocar algumas músicas para eles’. É infalível. Não podemos ser interrompidos.

Watt: “We realised that some of those small club sounds started really interesting us again. The idea of the trio, the small folk combo, the intimacy of Brazilian music, these things started to percolate in our minds again.

These things seemed to be things that worked in that context so well. There’s no point in putting a four-on-the-floor kick drum down and doing a banger when you’re doing a gig that intimate.

It actually puts a wall up in a way. In that context, it was just that this intimacy really works, so where can we find some music that helps us express that for a new set of songs?”.

Você pensaria que um disco de guitarra latina teria sido bem recebido há alguns meses, mas você realmente Everything But The Girl-ed tudo em algo bem sombrio e invernal de alguma forma.

Watt: “Of course! We have to make it melancholy.”.

You shot the video for ‘Young And Dumb’ in Moth Club too. Beyond the intimacy, is there anything else in the bricks, mortar and soul of that venue that you love.

Watt: “I love the booths down the side of the room. That gives it that slightly sleazy, port bar, jazz club kind of feel, which I really like when you look out into the room with the little lights on the tables.

Eu gosto das pessoas que o dirigem. Eu gosto que, quando as pessoas chegam, não parece nem um clube ou local.

So you must have been quite invested in the venue’s battle against being torn down by developers for flats.

Thorn: 'Bem, está em um lugar melhor do que estava. Todas as noites no palco estávamos dizendo às pessoas para assinarem a petição. Eles venceram a primeira parte da batalha, então dedos cruzados para que eles salvem isso.

It was horrendous. After COVID we saw so many venues close down, and we just can’t afford to lose these grassroots places. Long may it survive and thrive.”.

Watt: “KOKO set a good precedent in saying, ‘Look, we’ve been here for a long time and you’re just building flats with a balcony looking where we’ve been. You can’t just step into a pre-existing business like this’.

É a história da cena de clubes, onde áreas mais decadentes e abandonadas são ocupadas por artistas, depois se tornam desejáveis e são gentrificadas. Os lofts surgem e todos esses clubes e locais que faziam barulho até às 3h da manhã, quando a galera se espalhava pelas ruas, de repente se tornam um problema.

I’ve heard three songs from the new album. Tell us first about ‘Scala’ – that’s like a whole play within a song. What’s going on there.

Thorn: “That was a song where we had a version of it but the original music didn’t quite work so we almost shelved it, but we thought, ‘We cannot shelve these lyrics’.

Ben re-wrote something and it really came together. I like that combination, but it’s got this mad Cuban vibe in the music and the lyric is about me as a teenager.

Ele se passa em um mundo de adolescentes se encontrando, comprando singles de The Smiths e The Cure, meninos e meninas tentando se impressionar, e depois passando a noite de seu 19º aniversário – assim como eu – no chão da Scala.

Watt: “As we were recording it, the band felt like a band in a little run-down club somewhere. It’s got that nocturnal vibe. It just felt right when we married the lyric with the music.”.

E a música “Forward” com a letra: “You have to go headlong into the dark, into the light, you cannot go back, too much to unpack”. Isso reflete o sentimento anti‑nostálgico da banda.

Thorn: “Yes, and that’s going to be the opening track of the record. Opening an album with the message, ‘You have to go forward’, that’s quite a statement of intent.

When you listen to the record as a whole, it starts with that line about having to move forward but then spends its time – as we all do – caught between your past, your present and your future.

How do you live in your present, especially as you get older? How do you keep on the front foot and feeling energised about life? But you’re constantly in a dialogue with your past and your history.

Olhando para o futuro: neste estágio da sua carreira, há alguma pedra ainda não virada que você gostaria de virar ou há algo que ainda permanece na lista de desejos da Everything But The Girl.

Watt: “We have never, ever thought about things in that way. We literally have an idea and then we go it.”.

Thorn: “E nunca sabemos o que será. Não sabíamos que voltaríamos e fazer shows no Moth Club. Lembro de estar sentado em um bar com Ben uma noite e tentamos um pouco de música nova que não estava funcionando e ele disse, ‘O que vamos fazer?’ então eu respondi, ‘Oh, por Deus, por que não fazemos alguns shows então?’ Fomos tipo, ‘O quê?’.

Watt: “We made some demos that were a bit rubbish long before the new stuff. When Tracy said she wanted to do some gigs, my jaw hit the floor because she hadn’t wanted to sing for such a long time.”.

Thorn: “Sometimes the mood just takes you.”.

Watt: “I’ll tell you what’s been really liberating about choosing this part: we could have gone into Royal Albert Hall or almost anywhere, but going into Moth Club has allowed us to just play what we want.

We’re doing B-sides, we’re doing cover versions, we’re not playing songs that people would expect us to, and as a musician, that’s very liberating. We could easily go into an arena and do a tour with ‘What’s Missing’, all the ‘Walking Wounded’ hits, all the bangers.

Quando estávamos fazendo isso nos anos 90, perdemos a conexão com as pessoas. Você está apenas passando por um exercício ligado a indicações de iluminação, a setlist e todas as sortes de coisas quando chega a locais como esses.

Visit here to sign the petition to save Moth Club.

Everything But The Girl’s upcoming tour dates as Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn are below, with tickets to the 2027 shows on sale from 10am on Friday October 30 and available here.

NOVEMBER 2026 29 – Union Chapel, London 30 – Union Chapel, London.

DECEMBER 2026 13 – Moth Club, London 14 – Moth Club, London 15 – Moth Club, London.

MAY 2027 21 – Union Chapel, London 22 – Union Chapel, London 25 – St George’s Bristol 26 – Albert Hall, Manchester.

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