Tracey Thorn - a distant shore / expanded edition

'A Distant Shore' is a much loved indie classic. Freshly mastered at Abbey Road Studios with new sleeve-notes penned by Tracey, this 2024 edition is a beautifully presented reminder of the album's elemental beauty. Released to critical acclaim on Cherry Red back in September 1982, Tracey's debut solo album is full of engaging, melodic tunes and heartfelt lyrics delivered with her distinctive warm vocals.

Recorded for just £138 in a studio in a garden shed when she was a 19-year-old first-year student at Hull University, it is an astonishing demonstration of Tracey's songwriting talent, stripped down to vocal and semi-acoustic guitar. The album was released during a fertile period in her early career, when she was also playing with the group The Marine Girls and just about to embark on a life-long musical and personal partnership with Ben Watt in Everything But The Girl. It's stark minimalism made it stand out from the crowd, and the album remained on the Independent chart for many months.

    1 Small Town Girl
    2 Simply Couldn't Care
    3 Seascape
    4 Femme Fatale
    5 Dreamy
    6 Plain Sailing
    7 New Opened Eyes
    8 Too Happy
    9 Lucky Day (Demo)
    10 Another Bridge (Demo)
    11 Even So (Demo)
    12 The Spice of Life (Demo)
    13 Fascination (Demo)