Everything but the Girl will release Like The Deserts Miss The Rain, a career retrospective available on Sire/Atlantic, on March 11th. The typical greatest-hits selection process went by the wayside this time, with the band instead picking their sixteen favorite songs regardless of past popularity or sales success.

"Microwaved greatest hits never taste that nice," says multi-instrumentalist Ben Watt. "You always feel the cold hand of the record company. High chart-placings don't always equate with best material, and it's often only in retrospect that you see what your best stuff was."

The tracks were selected by Watt and singer Tracey Thorn with an eye towards tracing the group's evolution from their jazz-flavored beginnings in 1982 to a mid-career collaboration with Massive Attack on "Protection," and into the electronica-based sounds of recent years.

"Change is a jerky thing that only seems smooth in retrospect," says Watt. "You hear things by chance that change your mind, and often you act on an impulse that you have to find an explanation for later. However, there is a line that links our best work: a mood we strike, a lyrical stance we take, a harmonic consistency in the music."

Included in the first 25,000 copies of the greatest-hits package will be a four-song bonus disc of rarities.

Like The Deserts Miss The Rain track list:

My Head Is My Only House Unless it Rains
Rollercoaster
Corcovado
Each and Every One
Before Today (Chicane Mix)
Mine
Protection
Single (Photek Mix)
Tracey in My Room
Missing
Almost Blue
No Difference
Cross My Heart
Mirrorball
A Piece of My Mind
Walking Wounded

Bonus disc track list:

Gun Cupboard Love
Alfie
Take Me (Clifton Mix)
Pigeons in the Attic Room

COLIN DEVENISH
(February 26, 2003)