Beth Orton's voice is the sum of
its imperfections. It quivers and it breaks; it suddenly grows breathy or
droops down and away from the next note of a melody. It can be tearful or
languid, startled or adamant; it can plead or mourn or offer an uncertain
solace.
It's a voice as ungovernable as desire and fate, which are Orton's
constant subjects. Her songs don't tell stories. They meditate over a
situation, noticing a detail here or a memory there, often pondering a
recurring thought. At the Bowery Ballroom on Monday night, songs from her
next album, "Daybreaker" (Heavenly/Astralwerks), which is due
July 30, held reflections like "This was inevitable," or
"May there never be a time that I don't love you." The music
circled through two or three chords, able to linger
indefinitely.
With her previous albums, Ms. Orton leaned toward contemplation, letting
the music ripple and sway while her voice pierced the seeming serenity.
Now, coming into her own as a bandleader, she harnesses greater drama.
Although she plays acoustic guitar, Ms. Orton made her first recordings
with
dance-music groups like the Chemical Brothers, and she has not forgotten
the ways that repeating phrases can overlap and stack up into musical
peaks.
Her band, which included violin, cello and trumpet, still used the
easy-rolling vamps she learned from Van Morrison, Minnie Riperton and
Terry Callier. It was intricately understated music, entwining strands of
folk, soul, reggae and jazz and following the pained insights of her
lyrics with perfect sympathy. But in songs like "Paris Train"
and "Mount Washington," Ms. Orton also summoned fitful
crescendos and patterns as densely layered as a Steve Reich piece. As the
music billowed and gusted, the rawness and desolation in Ms. Orton's voice
only sounded more immediate.
James Yorkston, the opener, had his own folk-rooted hybrid. He sang about
sleepless nights and lost loves as he built acoustic-guitar picking into
rich, complex drones; a second musician played harmonium, tambourine and
lap-steel guitar.
As if he was Scotland's answer to John Fahey, Mr. Yorkston extended the
songs into mesmerizing fantasias.
Copyright 2002 The New York Times
|
| Amid all the garage rock hoopla
that's sinking its fangs into the airwaves of late, it's good to know
something truly fresh is making its way around the smoke and feedback.
Beth Orton's cloud of folk and electronica is over head and ready to drop Daybreaker,
her third album. As Beth played the first of two sold-out nights at the
Bowery Ballroom, June 10, 2002, the overwhelming response was, as the lass
from Norwich, England put it, "brilliant."
Gracing the stage in a knee-length
black dress with sheer long sleeves and a small scarf, Orton played a
barrage of songs from her upcoming album, as well as from 1997's Trailer
Park, Best Bit EP and 1999's Central Reservation. The songs
were like heavy-handed watercolor paintings – graceful yet tangible, not
flimsy or transparent.
Orton's whispery, melancholic
voice was at times punctuated by hard, cold notes that gave the songs –
and the audience – a kick in the spine. An upright bass, cello, violin,
organ, drum kit, two guitars, and laptop interwove the melodies in songs
such as "Pass in Time," "Best Bit," "Central
Reservation," "Galaxy of Emptiness," "Someone's
Daughter," and "Blood Red River." The band hit the high
marks with "Stolen Car" and "She Cries Your Name,"
which were peppered with pulpy beats and plinking piano notes. The new
songs reflect the same passionate energy that made Orton's earlier albums
so awesome, and the singer expressed her pleasure that the fans enjoyed
the new stuff. An overall ethereal, woozy kind of mood kept the crowd's
heart thudding.
For a woman who writes such lush,
rippling songs, Beth Orton is pretty much one of the guys. She's goofy.
She tells really bad jokes about a "bloke going to his
psychiatrist." She says "fuck" without blushing. She
sheepishly and uncomfortably ruffles her hair with her hand, biting her
lower lip when she's unsure of what to do next. Her Norwich accent is so
damn thick, it's hard to understand what the hell she's joking about. But
she broke out her best Brooklynese when she shouted, "How you
doin'?"
When the band began playing, Orton
realized she was playing the wrong song, and gasped, "Oh
bugger!" Everything she did tickled the crowd to no end. Instead of
ignoring the lusty cheers, Orton embraced them in a playful and sexy way.
When the pulse of a song kicked in, she'd get a bit jiggy with it,
grinning into the stage lights. In between sips of hot tea and slugs of
bottled water, she expressed her concern of dehydration while performing,
adding she wasn't sure why it was an issue to her. "It's because
you're HOT!" screamed one of the many hopeful suitors in the crowd.
Orton giggled, clearly amused. The shouts of "I love you" were
met with "And I love you, and you, and you, and you."
Beth Orton's music settles the
air, and then slowly stirs it in grand circles (damn, I sound like some
kinda hippie chick). I can even call her innovative without wincing. She's
creating something new, something that doesn't rely on a musical genre
that began almost 20 years ago. After an hour and 45 minutes, Orton was
onstage by herself, did a little bow, saluted the crowd, and bounced off,
leaving us to dangle in her lilting frequency |
