INCREDIBLY, IT’S BEEN OVER HALF A DECADE SINCE BETH ORTON’S LAST RELEASE.
A guest appearance on the final studio album by the great Bert Jansch plus, on a magazine giveaway compilation, interesting cover versions of I ME MINE / DIG IT (The Beatles) have surfaced in the intervening years, meaning that Orton has at least seen the inside of a studio, but six years have passed since she last gave full and frank account of her sonic whereabouts.
2006’s COMFORT OF STRANGERS scuffed the established folk-electronica sunset-burnish featured heavily on her DAYBREAKER (2002), CENTRAL RESERVATION (1999) and classic 1996 debut TRAILER PARK albums. It waved her off as she kicked up the dust and travelled sunrise dirt-roads out to the more abrasive horizons of her songwriting, where a looser set of production values and a much grittier alt-trad aesthetic were waiting.
Where those first three albums were sometimes coy and blissed-out comedown, COMFORT OF STRANGERS was seemingly a working through of frustrations, both personal and professional – a determined record of intent, facing down the past and eyeing up the future. And then, for six years… nothing.
Down periscope… Embracing the rustic classic songwriting vibe once again, and coming back to work after the early years of motherhood, Beth Orton is on the verge of issuing new album SUGARING SEASON (October 2nd, via Anti Records).
As you’d expect, The Mouth Magazine will be sprinkling a full review of the 10 track collection across its pages a bit closer to release – but for now, courtesy of the lovely folk at Anti, we can offer readers the chance to hear the album’s rather beautiful opening salvo MAGPIE. You can listen via the player below, or download as a free MP3.