Adapt or Die: 10 Years of Remixes

Even though Everything but the Girl spent most of their career making acoustic music, it came as no surprise that the club scene eventually adopted them. After all, Tracey Thorn has the type of voice that club DJs dream of: otherworldly but full of human desire, commanding but mysterious, erotic but elusive. She fused sadness and desire like no other singer of her era, and could therefore personify the bittersweet transcendence of club life. Adapt or Die: 10 Years of Remixes features reworking of several Everything but the Girl songs from the '90s, from around the time when Todd Terry’s landmark remix of “Missing” turned the shy husband-and-wife duo into international stars. On most of these tracks, the unstoppable, sometimes apocalyptic insistence of the beats takes precedence over Thorn’s vocals, which tend to float over the proceedings like a ghostly premonition. Her husband, Ben Watt, did a better job of making beats that fully merged with her voice. Still, these versions of “Mirrorball,” “Corvacado,” and “Blame” glorify the essence of Everything but the Girl, who always seem to want to go deeper into atmospheric melancholy.