Orton did however leave the studio door wedged open to a fine selection of players including The Smile’s drummer Tom Skinner, Mancunian jazz star Alabaster dePlume, multi-instrumentalist/composed Shahzad Ismaily, and The Invisible’s bassist Tom Herbert. As individual artists, they each know the importance and sheer power of letting music breathe and creating a sense of space, which this record positively revels in. Written on a battered old piano she saved from Camden Market, Weather Alive could prove to be another career-defining record for an artist who’s already peppered her three decades in music with a steady series of career-defining records.
It's a record that collates memories and experiences spanning a lifetime, with stories that touch on struggles, on healing and of beauty.
Beth Orton is one of the UK’s most unique and beguiling voices. Across almost thirty years, Orton’s sound has shapeshifted from her output with The Chemical Brothers, Andrew Weatherall, Red Snapper and William Orbit, to a pioneer of an electronic, woozy brand of trip-hop. Over the course of her six albums to date, Orton resolutely refutes categorisation, weaving from a hushed, folk-informed storytelling to dark, brooding esoteric experimentalism. Through all these different sonic explorations, Beth Orton remains a fantastically evocative songwriter, finding artist fans and collaborators in the most unlikely of places. Out of the studio, she’s shared the stage and mic with the likes of Patti Smith, Nick Cave, Sinead O’Connor, Flaming Lips and Beck.
A BRIT Award winner, and Mercury Prize nominee twice, for all the plaudits acclaim that fall Beth Orton’s way, she continues to take the path less travelled in forging her next move, making for a riveting and hugely unpredictable back catalogue. One of our longstanding finest musicians, and yet one with so much more still to give.
Beth Orton heads out on tour of Europe and the UK in support of Alanis Morissette this month, ahead of a handful of festival appearances throughout the European summer.
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