In the summer of 2010, Mercury Prize winners (and Everything But The Girl fans) The xx asked Tracey Thorn and her long-time partner in EBTG Ben Watt to record a track from The xx’s debut album for a special compilation the band was commissioning of covers of the album’s songs by their favorite artists.

Unfortunately, the project fell apart a few months later for numerous logistical reasons (not the least of which was the second wind breathed into the original album by the Mercury Prize victory) but not before Tracey had sung a new version of one of the album’s most beautiful songs, “Night Time.”

The track gathered dust for a few months, but it is rightfully seeing the light of day on a new digital EP from Tracey Thorn called Night Time, available today!

Night Time track listing:
1. Night Time
2. Swimming (Visionquest Remix, Ewan Pearson Re-Edit)
3. Swimming (Charles Webster Remix)
4. Swimming (Charles Webster Dub)

On November 8, Merge Records will release Extended Plays, an extensive digital compilation that includes the Night Time EP and all other bonus content that Tracey has compiled with the release of Love and Its Opposite. Pre-order Extended Plays now at iTunes.

Tracey writes:

Although there is a minimal and traditional feel to the recordings on Love And Its Opposite, the remixes and B-sides from the same period offer more experimentation and playfulness. “Taxi Cab” was recorded in an afternoon for fun. The Andre Lodemann remix of “Why Does The Wind?” is one of my favourite deep house mixes of my songs, and WALLS brought a woozy dreaminess to the reflective “Kentish Town.” I love them all. A perfect companion piece to the original album.

Extended Plays 2010-2011 track listing:
1. Taxi Cab (Vampire Weekend Cover)
2. Why Does the Wind? (Ewan Pearson Radio Edit)
3. Why Does the Wind? (Morgan Geist Remix)
4. Why Does the Wind? (Michel Cleis Remix)
5. Why Does the Wind? (Andre Lodemann Remix)
6. Why Does the Wind? (Andre Lodemann Dub)
7. Swimming (Visionquest Remix)
8. Kentish Town (Walls Remix)
9. Late in the Afternoon (Blue Daisy Remix)
10. You Are a Lover (Clock Opera Remix)
11. Sister Winter (Sufjan Stevens Cover)
12. Night Time (The xx Cover)
13. Swimming (Visionquest Remix, Ewan Pearson Re-Edit)
14. Swimming (Charles Webster Remix)
15. Swimming (Charles Webster Underwater Mix)

We have a very limited amount of import vinyl for Love and Its Opposite, Oh, The Divorces! b/w Taxi Cab, and You Are a Lover EP in the Merge store. Buy them before they’re gone!

Tracey Thorn’s new digital EP, You are a Lover, is available now via our usual digital outlets including iTunes, Amazon, and the Merge store.

The Merge store version includes a free set of five JPG wallpapers created specifically for iPhone (320×480), iPad (1024×1024), and monitor resolutions 1280×800, 1680×1050, and 1920×1200. The iPad version is available for free to test out; all others only available with purchase exclusively in the Merge store.

The You Are a Lover EP was originally released as a limited-edition Record Store Day UK 10-inch on green vinyl. There are a few copies available in the Merge store in addition to the digital version.

Got a blog? Want to interview Tracey Thorn? Email us the link to your blog plus six imaginative questions about the new EP, Tracey’s most recent album, Love and Its Opposite or anything at all, really! The best blogs with the best questions will get a personal set of answers from Tracey. And when it’s finished, we’ll even circulate the link to your interview to push more people your way.

If you have a burning question for Tracey or if this just sounds like fun, send your entry to merge@mergerecords.com by May 24, 2011.

You Are a Lover EP track listing:

1. You Are a Lover (Clock Opera Remix)
2. You Are a Lover (album version)
3. Sister Winter (Sufjan Stevens cover)

As a Thank You for all the love and attention paid to her album this year, Love And Its Opposite, Tracey Thorn shins down the chimney to deliver a FREE Christmas Stocking to warm the winter fireside.

Inside you’ll find a brand new cover version of Sufjan Stevens’ seasonal classic, “Sister Winter” recorded in Berlin with producer Ewan Pearson, plus a filmed live-at-home performance of “Singles Bar” (from her current album Love And Its Opposite) featuring Ewan on keyboards and Tracey’s partner, Ben Watt on electric guitar. In addition there is a personal photo of Tracey snapped by Ben in Brooklyn during her promo trip to New York in April this year.

Spin.com is offering a stream of “Sister Winter” now, and click here to download the whole “Christmas Stocking” full of goodies from Tracey Thorn!

On August 31, Tracey Thorn will release Opposites - a special digital-only EP of experimental remixes of tracks from her acclaimed new album Love And Its Opposite. If the album, produced by Ewan Pearson, was heralded for its unadorned and direct honesty, the remixes are deliberately oblique reinterpretations that throw a new sidelight on three of the album’s key tracks.

“If the remixes for the last single ‘Why Does The Wind?‘ were aimed at the dancefloor, these are perhaps aimed more at the head.” says Tracey. “People often only remember the dance remixes I have been involved with, and forget the great futuristic re-works of my voice over the years by people like Photek, Omni Trio and Howie B. If my versions of my songs are often plain and direct, these mixes add question marks and blind alleys, and I like that. It adds a different colour and makes them closer to my work with Massive Attack perhaps.”

For the EP, the album’s closing track, ‘Swimming’ (featuring Nashville’s Cortney Tidwell) is remixed into a psychedelic West Coast journey by Visionquest. Fronted by Detroit’s Seth Troxler, Visionquest is Seth plus American sparring partners Ryan Crosson and Lee Curtiss, who all ran the influential Tesh Club together before Seth moved to Berlin to become resident DJ at the city’s pivotal Club der Visionare and Weekend Clubs in 2008. The move has made Seth one of Europe’s most in-demand DJs of late. Cortney and Tracey’s backing vocals are looped into a swirling head-swim before the track locks onto a killer Fleetwood Mac groove for a deep Balearic summer ride.

WALLS are Sam Willis (from influential electronic music blog, Allez-Allez) and Alessio Natalizia (Banjo or Freakout). Their recent debut album on German uber-label Kompakt has been one of the year’s sleeper hits. Mixing the same influences that pepper the album, their rework of ‘Kentish Town’ is a woozy blissed-out dream, part Krautrock, part Eno-esque ambience.

Kwesi Darko aka Blue Daisy runs Camden Town’s Black Acre and has turned it into one of the labels to watch over the past few months. The imprint has delivered a string of inventive post-dubstep soundscapes for forward-looking dancefloors and afterhours parties alike. Drawing on dub, hip-hop and rich synthetic orchestration, Blue Daisy’s take on ‘Late In The Afternoon’ is blunted and cinematic, heavy on sub-bass and twinkling stressed-out FX.

Tracey Thorn’s Opposites EP will be available beginning August 24 exclusively on Beatport and then on the usual digital outlets beginning August 31. Download a free MP3 of “Kentish Town (Walls Remix)” and feel free to share!

Tracklist:
1. Swimming (Visionquest Remix)
2. Swimming (Album Version)
3. Kentish Town (Walls Remix)
4. Kentish Town (Album Version)
5. Late in the Afternoon (Blue Daisy Remix)
6. Late in the Afternoon (Album Version)

Today, Tracey Thorn released a new digital EP, Why Does the Wind? which includes six remixes of “Why Does the Wind?” Featuring remixes by Morgan Geist, Andre Lodemann and Michel Cleis, Why Does the Wind? contains several exciting new takes on one of the standout tracks from Tracey Thorn’s critically acclaimed new record Love and Its Opposite.

On having her songs remixed, Tracey said, “I just love hearing remixes of my songs, I like hearing where other people will take the original idea. Also, I don’t ever want to completely close the door on the electronic side of my music, and I’m aware that there are many fans who love hearing my voice over a more dancefloor-friendly track, so the remixes are a way of offering at least a little something to those listeners too.”

Tracey Thorn’s Why Does the Wind? EP is available now at your favorite digital music outlet and the Merge store.

“Thorn dazzles with some of her long career’s most astute songwriting.” ~Spin Magazine