Walking Wounded

Description

Released for the first time in 1996, Walking Wounded is the acclaimed million-selling album by Everything But The Girl – the best-selling British duo formed in 1982 by singer-songwriters Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt – and arrives in a new deluxe CD edition featuring 29 tracks, remixed and with additional songs. Walking Wounded reached #4 on the UK Album Chart in May 1996 and includes four singles in the UK Top 40, including the Top 10 hits Walking Wounded and Wrong. In doing so, it set a new benchmark for the intersection of contemporary electronic music and emotional pop songwriting. While the album builds on the folktronica of the duo's previous million-selling success, Amplified Heart, it also owes its adventurous spirit to the later global hit of 1995, Missing (remixed by Todd Terry), and to Thorn's collaboration in 1994 with the Bristol collective, Massive Attack, on their second album, Protection. Inspired by London's burgeoning drum 'n' bass scene and American deep house imports, Watt programmed and produced most of the tracks in the duo's home demo studio basement in North London, using an Akai sampler, a synthesizer, a guitar, a cheap vocal mic, and an 8-track cassette machine. Thorn's solitary voice took center stage, with forward-looking arrangements remaining stripped down and devoid of backing vocals. Additionally, producer John Coxon (Spring Heel Jack), with whom the duo had worked on Amplified Heart, provided the backing track for the album's title song, and beats specialist Howie B programmed the groove for Flipside. Everything was then transferred to 2" analog tape and mixed at The Townhouse by Andy Bradfield. Walking Wounded was acclaimed upon its release on both sides of the Atlantic. "The new incarnation of EBTG is the best yet. It will just take time for people to catch up," said NME. "A career peak... raw, pure, and absolutely beautiful," stated Rolling Stone. Twenty-three years later, in a retrospective review in 2019, Pitchfork awarded the album a score of 9.0 and commented: "Words do not do justice to the emotional multiplicity – wounded yet warm, worn yet rich – of Thorn's voice, and to how she effortlessly carved out a home amid Watt's austere sound architecture." Mastered at Abbey Road Studios by Miles Showell, the production order follows the model of the now sold-out 2015 deluxe edition, with original artwork in a new layout by John Gilsenan at I Want Design, including full lyrics, credits, and period photos.