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British musician Ben Watt is starting the next phase of his varied career with his first solo record in thirty years, Hendra (Unmade Road, April 29). The cofounder of Everything But the Girl with then-partner, now-wife Tracey Thorn, Watt has also been a DJ, promoter, record label owner (Buzzin’ Fly, Strange Feeling), internet radio host, and author of Patient: The True Story of a Rare Illness, which detailed his battle with Churg-Strauss syndrome. The new album, recorded with guitarist Bernard Butler, features such tracks as “Forget,” “Spring,” “Golden Ratio,” “Matthew Arnold’s Field,” and “The Heart Is a Mirror.” On his website, Watt describes Hendra, which was made following the death of his sister, as “‘a folk-rock album in an electronic age.’ Ten songs. Unsentimental. Impressionistic. Songs about close family and strangers, resilience and hope. All set in vivid landscapes where the outside comes inside and clings to the stories.” Watt and Butler will be at Joe’s Pub on April 1 and Rough Trade on April 2, highlighting songs from the new record. In addition, Watt’s second memoir, Romany and Tom, which focuses on his mother and father as well as himself, will be released by Bloomsbury in the U.S. on June 10. “We only ever see the second half of our parents’ lives — the downhill part,” Watt writes in the book’s preface. We are now fortunate to see what is essentially the third (or fourth? fifth?) part of Watt’s career, which appears to be far from going downhill.