> Anglo Plugging 1996
> Dot Music Talent Oct 1996
> Q Magazine Nov 1996
> Smug Magazine 1997
> Extra Raw 19 Feb 1997
> NME She Cries Your Name single review 7 June 1997
> Details Magazine June 1997
> Scholastic Rock July 1997
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Seeing a girl sat, plucking away at an acoustic in the upstairs room of a boozer, singing from the depths of her soul rates pretty highly next to these thrills, these moments that fire up the soul. The girl, Beth Orton, may seem like the most unassuming young lady you could hope to meet. Give her 30 minutes with a 6 string & you're hers forever...

Beth Orton was born December 1970 & drifted through her teens in a musical haze of Terry Callier, Neil Young, Nick Drake, Stone Roses, Rolling Stones, Carol King, Rickie Lee Jones, her early '20's immersed in everything from Radiohead to TLC. Beth's first musical project was a one off single was a cover of John Martyn's "Don't Wanna Know About Evil", recorded with William Orbit under the name of Spill. Her relationship with Mr. Orbit carried on with the Strange Cargo project, where Beth co-wrote "Water From A Vine Leaf", (from Strange Cargo 3 & on single in remixed pure throbbing techno monster form, reconstructed by Underworld). She first came to the public eye guesting with Red Snapper on their first two singles. Beth featured on their first single, "Snapper" & co-wrote & sang on their second single (the 10 minute psycho blues track "In Deep"). Through the William Orbit days & onto working with Snapper, the basis of the songs has always just been acoustic guitar & vocals, leaving their roots exposed even when underpinned by burbling techno pulses or sampled breakbeats.

Summer 1995 & a bandless Beth holes up with a bunch of mad mates in a dingy rehearsal room off Holloway Road. The mates, who made up the backbone of Primal Scream (guitarist Andrew Innes, keyboard man Martin Duffy & bass player 'H'), mucked about on a bunch of songs, remodeling & restructuring, shaping the musical direction of "Live As You Dream" & nursing sore heads daily. In the Autumn of 1994, Beth hooked up with The Chemical Brothers while they were on a hunt for someone to do justice to a set of lyrics they had written. After a few hours in the studio, "Alive:Alone" had been completed, with Beth sprinkling pure warmth & soul over the top of a warped slo-mo backing track. "Alive...' became the last track on the hugely successful Chemical Brothers debut album, "Exit Planet Dust" (which has since gone on to sell 150,000 copies in Britain alone).

Over the last year, Beth's ambition has been to return her songs to a 'genuine source' & to 'not just put a drum machine behind it'. Of this, Beth says "It's been a bigger challenge to sit there all bare & naked instead of hiding behind a name producer or a trendy remixer". With a band that creates wild, textured music, Beth Orton has tried to prove that you don't have to use bleeps, breaks & big beats to create very modern & very soulful music.

Just get prepared to have your heart broken.."

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David Sheppard, Q Magazine, November 1996.

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It's been a long time since British folk music has been cool, but Heavenly's latest signing Beth Orton is about to change all that. Armed with songs that marry influences from the quality end of folk with trip hop dynamics, the 25-year-old Norwich-born singer is a welcome enigma. Her debut single, She Cries Your Name, just failed to make the Top 75, but Heavenly is happy to take a relaxed approach to marketing. "We don't want to force it down people's throats, we want people to come to it," says Heavenly's head of A&R Martin Kelly, about Orton's debut album Trailer Park. "Everyone that's heard it has really picked up on it, so I think we'll just have a gradual build," he adds. "We're not expecting it to go straight into the top five."

A female singer/songwriter with clear Sandy Denny and Nick Drake influences might seem thoroughly atypical of a label that is home to Northern Uproar, St Etienne, Monkey Mafia and Espiritu, but Kelly doesn't think that way. He says, "There is no typical Heavenly act. It's always been, and will continue to be, really eclectic, with the emphasis on quality pop".

Her Heavenly releases aren't Orton's first foray into music into music, as she was previously a voice-for-hire who added her haunting monochrome vocal to a variety of dance projects. She co-wrote and appeared on songs with William Orbit and Red Snapper and, in 1994, joined with The Chemical Brothers, singing on Alive Alone, the finale to their Exit Planet Dust album. "William Orbit came to see a play I was in," recalls Orton. "He wanted me to read on this song for him but, when I got to the studio I was a bit pissed, so I sang..."

Five years later, Orton is revelling in the artistic consequences of that drunken indulgence, with Trailer Park, an album she claims is more of a collaboration than a solo project. "I didn't tell the musicians I brought in with me what to do," she says. "I gave them the feel of the song and ideas of how I wanted them to go, but the only reason I brought all these people together was to see what would happen."

Playing on Trailer Park is bassist Ally Friend (Red Snapper), Junctions' guitarist Ted Barnes, and Sandal's drummer Will Blanchford.

As a result, an album of many moods has emerged. There is a melange of folk and subtle electronica that's had its eccentricities pronounced by the two producers at the helm, Victor Van Vught and Andrew Weatherall. "It was really important to me when I recorded Trailer Park to achieve the diversity", says Orton. "At the time, I was just schizoid and I didn't want to be seen as a hippy-dippy-girlie-folky-singer. It's just the way I am, everything I like is really different and I just wanted to do everything I could on one album. I think that's the way it always is with people who are a bit inexperienced... you just have to go for it."

by Lee Henshaw

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I was intrigued by this recording before I listened to the disc. It was given to me by the man that represents Deconstruction here in America. Deconstruction is a British label that specializes in electronica (you know, electronic dance music).

I got into reviewing electronic music for one magazine and now I can't get away from the stuff. I'm the least likely authority on the subject, but I keep getting this type of music sent to me in the mail. Some of the magazines and newspapers that I write for actually want record reviews of the latest ambient, trip-hop, jungle, drum 'n' bass and the rest of it, so I comply.

This record does not fit into any of those categories. There is some electronic music on Beth Orton's record, but not much. She is more of a British folkie than anything else. Orton is young and talented and she has actual strings on this record. I don't like to compare artists, but I must admit her voice is slightly reminiscent of Sinead O'Conner's.

The thing that drew me to Orton was the youthful innocence that is conveyed on her album. I believe that Orton's "Trailer Park" is available in the United States as an import only. I imagine that even then it is hard to find because Deconstruction is distributed by RCA Records and they have other things on their mind. RCA is part of the BMG music group. BMG is a fairly huge operation. They will spend $50,000 publicizing the Dave Matthews Band at the South By Southwest Music Seminar before they make Beth Orton's record available domestically.

I imagine that writing this review won't make a bit of difference. Still, the record sounds very nice and it isn't electronica. Wistful harmonies, very melodic songs and very few beats per minute. Acoustic guitars, strings, double bass, mandolins and one lovely voice. No electronica, not tonight... I've got a headache. - Mitch Myers

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But Orton, who first made a name for herself working with leading British electronic artists like William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers, avoids the pitfalls that have trapped many a lesser folksy songstress by mixing her sweet melodies with healthy doses of strings, psychedelic samples, and even near-funky grooves. Some songs eschew acoustic guitars entirely, instead using electronic instruments to construct strangely compelling soundscapes that even Tricky would be proud of.

Trailer Park starts off with the irresistable "She Cries Your Name," with its slurring violins and soaring flutes mixing with danceable beats and Orton's multi-tracked vocals to create a hypnotic Eastern feel that had my wife singing the melody to herself after one cursory listen. "Tangent" loses the guitars entirely, instead using trippy ambient sounds, psychedelic effects, and a repetitive dub-like bassline to create a sizzling backdrop for Orton's charming, lilting voice. "Don't Need a Reason" switches up the groove entrely with its lushly orchestrated folk balladry, while "Sugar Boy" uses a "Walk On the Wild Side" bassline, rimshot-heavy drums, and swirling organs to create a good old-fashioned pop song. Nearly every other song is just as powerful, but the albums's high point has to be the heartwrenching cover of Ronnie Spector's "I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine," an achingly melancholy ballad that will simply tear you apart. Look, I realize that I'm practically gushing here, but when's the last time you found a record that your 72-year-old grandmother loved almost as much as you did?"

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These are just a few of the platforms in the omniscient debate over electronica. Fortunately for the conoisseur who loves innovative music and has better things to do than argue apples and oranges, Beth Orton bridges the gap separating the opposing entities by touching down on each level. She soothes with an angelic voice while the music creates eerie atmospheres that transform lonesome ballads of woe into ethereal prophesizing. For anyone having doubt over which side of the line they stake claim, one listen to Orton's casual hybridization squelches all indecisiveness. Yes, you can have both, and Beth Orton's breezy grace demonstrates why compromise is necessary.

"It doesn't have to be one or the other, and it doesn't have to be both," she says. "It just IS. God, I sound like Calvin Klein commercial."

Well, maybe. The lanky, six-foot 26-year-old fits the mold of a CK model just as well if not better than, say, Royal Trux's Jennifer Herrema. On her debut Trailer Park, Orton's blend of distinct musics isn't forced like some bands overextendng themselves with multi-genre amalgamations. A collection ranging from mournful, acoustic folk to deep rolling electornic plains and all points in between, Trailer Park shows two sides of Orton: the lovelorn songstress a la Joni Mitchell, confessing her songs to you like cozy diary entries; and the mello, electronic diva singing above spacious aural settings. Everything about the album is soft, gentle, forgiving. Writing songs comes freely to Orton, her open heart pours with tear-jerking sentiment. Amidst a plunging bassline and drum-machine pattering, emotion is easily translated into drawn-out, heavenly howls. Tender pleas such as "Won't you please knock me off my feet, for awhile" from the album closer "Galaxy of Emptiness," create the perfect musical cyborg. Each note sung tickles the soul like a dove's feather, each warm
texture caresses it.

In addition to being the Jeckyll and Hyde of dance music, Trailer Park is also a lesson in downplayed studio gymnastics. Although the electronic work is beautiful, to Orton, the studio is just another instrument, the final step. An instrumental presence that's subtly nested in the background creating atmospheres instead of playing notes, it's a part of the song, it doesn't control it.

If the reason electronica hasn't taken off is because of its' facelessness and ambiguity, Beth Orton is capble of changing that. Counteracting the electronic backlash, she humanizes each song with emotion and beauty that, once heard, is impossible to forget. Though proud of her work, the songstress is humbly aloof about the larger role she's playing in today's music scene. A frontrunner in the burgeoning, cross-hatched acoustic/electro genre, she doubts her importance: "Me, I haven't opened any doors. I think they were opened before."

But after fruitless pondering over her doorman predecessors, she corrects herself. "Actually maybe I have opened the doors. Fuckin' hell, weird. Someone once said to me in a club one night, "You know what you've done, don't you? You've started something and you better make sure people know that you started it."

Her unique incorporation of dance grooves and folk memory stems from her almost backwards musical timeline. She's always loved singer/songwriters, Rickie Lee Jones ("I love the ways she writes songs, I love her words"), Neil Young, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley and the like. And though she wrote many songs on her acoustic guitar, she never thought of playing with a full band. She never went to rock shows; the London underground dance scene was her hang, eventually meeting and working with William Orbit on Strange Cargo and the Chemical Brothers, adding vocals to Exit.Planet.Dust's "Alive:Alone" and Dig Your Own Hole's "Where Do I Begin."

Her opportunity to record with a band came in the form of Red Snapper, an acoustic hip-hop collective. (Red Snapper's Ali Friend plays upright bass and co-wrote most of Trailer Park) "That was a really interesting experience because previously I've only been in the studio, one on one with a machine," Orton recalls. Now suddenly, there was a band! Bass and guitars all playing at once and recording it live. Me singing live with the band. No drop-ins. No chop your vocals up because it's better that way. [When we were finished recording.] I was like, 'don't you now want to totally chop my vocals and put it back together.' When they said no, I thought, 'wow, how exciting is that.' Like a real performance."

Saddled with tons of cred thanks to Orton's associaton with the respected UK underground, Trailer Park won critic's raves in England and is starting to perk the ears of US audiences. "This American thing couldn't have happened at a better time," she says of the recent media frenzy surrounding her NYC press day. "After I made the album, I couldn't even listen to it. I just could not have anything to do with it. Then last night at a meeting at the record company [Dedicated], they wre playing it. I didn't leave the room, I didn't get all weird. I just didn't care. I thought, 'Fuck, that sounds really good. Wow, yeah, that's nice, I like that."

"Everyone told me that by the time I got to America, I'd be really bored of my album, and I'd have to keep going. But really, I've just fallen in love with it."

Orton is able to roll with whatever she's presented with, be it a studio, full band or captive audience. At a recent hype-less gig at Arlene's Grocery in NYC, the visibly nervous Orton calmed down once her soulful echoing took effect on the room packed with critical those in the know. Now that the pre-release fear concerning Trailer Park has subsided, like a frightened kitten in a tree about to be rescued, Orton's proud that she made it that high but apprehensive about her acceptance into the arms of strangers. "That part of it [the album], I don't worry about," she says. "To me, doing the gig is worrying enough. I just want the songs to come across. I'm just a method for them to come out. I have to be as good as I can to let them be as good as they can." Judging from her performance that night, Orton's presence is a perfect giftbox for her broken-hearted gems.

Though her music is a testament to the inbreeding of electronica and traditioal guitar-based muic, Orton's a club kid deep down, staunchly defending the soul of electronica to an antagonistic journalist at the drop of a beat. "Dance music is a really weird thing," she explains. "It came out and it was really cold, faceless. Then people started to put face to it, and started to put voice to it. But even if it didn't have a voice, it's still got its own heart and soul, and in a way, it's quite a natural thing."

But what about those who say that electronica is killing rock?

"Technophobia is rife. When dance music came in, it was like, 'Fucking hell, fucking hell, computers are taking over the world,'" she says in mock panic. "At one point in 1988, we thought we'd all be walking around in spacesuits, didn't we? Actually what we ended up wearing was shell suits, do you know what I mean.

"[Dance music's] got its own heart and soul on one hand, and it's very cold on the other. To give it a voice, a human voice, can actually be more of a lie because you can't mess with what's there. You can't pretend that it's not a computer at the end of the day.

"What I'm trying to say is that I'm not trying to add a heart to dance music, I'm just playing with what's already there."

(posted and typed by Chris Beckwith)

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