It's easy to forget how crucial guitars were to the music of Everything But the Girl. They were not merely embellishment of production, but rather an anchor to the style that gave credence to both Tracey Thorn and her husband Ben Watt at the start of their respective careers. While she got her start in such post-punk outfits as Stern Bops and Marine Girls, it was her hushed 1982 solo debut, A Distant Shore, that helped the NME set recognize Thorn. Watt’s trajectory, meanwhile, saw him being taken under the wings of such prominent English rock icons as Kevin Coyne, who produced his first single "Cant" upon signing to Cherry Red in 1981, and Robert Wyatt, prominently featured on his 1982 debut EP Summer Into Winter, before forging his own unique fusion of British folk and bossa nova on 1983’s North Marine Drive.
It was once thought that a full-on return to those organic roots was a bridge too far for Watt, who continued to travel further and further into London’s deep house and techno culture as the curator of both the influential late '90s/early '00s Sunday club Lazy Dog and the independent record label Buzzin’ Fly, which he launched in 2003 and ran until 2013. However, the Marylebone native surprised both fans and critics alike in 2014 with Hendra, a leftfield return to the intimate songcraft he explored on North Marine Drive 31 years prior as if the whole time burning up dancefloors in Miami, Berlin and Ibiza was all just something of a fever dream.
And so goes the name of his third proper solo full-length, an album that continues to find Watt moving his DJ rig further into the storage unit of his creative mind in order to continue to explore his reignited love for live instrumentation. He recorded at the renowned RAK Studios in London, with the intention of melding the fineness of Pentangle to the fury of Crazy Horse. And in its way, Fever Dream picks up where Hendra left off, as songs like "Women’s Company" and "Never Goes Away" retain the delicacy of its predecessor's finest moments. But the cranked-amp grit of the record's more combustible cuts, like "Winter's Eve" and "Bricks and Wood," sets the scene.
This is the very first time we are really hearing Ben Watt in full guitar rock mode. You can certainly hear the influence of solo David Gilmour, whose appearance on "The Levels" was one of the highlights of Hendra. Yet by largely keeping the electric currents of Fever Dream so well mannered, however, songs like "Gradually" and "Between Two Fires" fail to muster up much excitement. The strongest material, in fact, constitutes some of Ben Watt's finest work in years. The closest he does come to integrating his Buzzin' Fly past happens on "Running With the Front Runners", when that whistling Moog you might have heard on some of your favorite Everything But the Girl tunes turns up. Elsewhere, an appearance by MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger shines on the title cut. By the closing number, the pastoral "New Year of Grace", Watt lets his British folk roots show, with Marissa Nadler playing Jacqui McShee to his Bert Jansch.
From his four decades in music to his valiant coping with the rare inflammatory disease Churg-Strauss Syndrome (chronicled in his excellent 1996 book Patient), Watt's career is a quietly inspiring survival story. At one point, it didn't look like Watt was going to live to see 50, considering that his illness has the potential to attack both the heart and lungs, let alone continue to release solo albums. So in that regard, Fever Dream is an absolute triumph. It would have been a lot more of an interesting listen, however, had he decided to really get his hands dirty in feedback and digital fuzz.
