One of the most enduring English singer/songwriters since the early '80s, Tracey Thorn began with the all-female quartet Marine Girls, a minimalist pop group that released a pair of albums inspired by Young Marble Giants and the Raincoats. She recorded A Distant Shore, a relatively moody, if similarly skeletal solo album, for Cherry Red in 1983, and around that time she met Ben Watt and formed a partnership as Everything But the Girl. From 1984 through 1999, Thorn and Watt released ten albums that shifted from indie pop to slick sophisti-pop to downtempo club music. After several years of inactivity, Thorn recorded her second solo album, Out of the Woods, which was released in early 2007. ~ Andy Kellman