Video · Buzzin’ Fly / Virgin Music Group
Everything But The Girl Strip It Back on the Gorgeous “Young and Dumb”
Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt announce Blue Reservoir, their 11th studio album, out February 19 via Buzzin’ Fly, and the first single finds them trading electronica for nylon-string guitar and bare harmonies.
Everything But The Girl spent most of the last three decades away from live performance, so when Tracey Thorn and Ben Watt quietly booked a residency at London’s 300-capacity MOTH Club in 2025, it turned into something neither of them expected: sold-out nights, thousands on the waiting list, and a creative jolt that pushed them somewhere new. Blue Reservoir, their 11th studio album, is what came out the other side. “Young and Dumb” is the first thing off it, and it is a significant departure from the crisp electronica of 2023’s Fuse: sparse, warm, rooted in voice and guitar in a way that recalls the band’s earliest work without sounding like nostalgia.
The shift came from Watt buying a Spanish nylon-string guitar in January 2026 — the first he had ever owned — and finding that it unlocked something. The album’s ten songs (nine written on guitar, one on piano) were recorded largely live over ten days at RAK Studios in London in July, with long-standing collaborators Rex Horan on double bass and Evan Jenkins on drums, plus Fabio de Oliveira on percussion — son of Bosco de Oliveira, a central figure on the duo’s 1984 debut Eden. Their own son Blake Watt appears on two tracks. The production is Everything But The Girl’s own, recorded and mixed by Bruno Ellingham, mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road.
“It is the sound of so much of the music I first connected with growing up, and I’d never actually owned one. It became quite an emotional springboard for me. I found a voice I thought I’d lost.”
— Ben Watt on the nylon-string guitar that shaped Blue Reservoir
“Young and Dumb” arrives with a video directed by Edward Bishop from a treatment by Thorn and Watt. Blue Reservoir is out February 19.
Out February 19, 2027 · Buzzin’ Fly / Virgin Music Group
Recorded at RAK Studios, London; additional overdubs at home studio, north London
Produced by Everything But The Girl; recorded and mixed by Bruno Ellingham; mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road
With Rex Horan (double bass), Evan Jenkins (drums), Fabio de Oliveira (percussion), Blake Watt (guest)
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