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PAPER MARCH 1999

Beth Orton is a shy yet powerful presence. Her dreamyeyed, expansive talk about her work contrasts with her refusal to impart most other personal details. At home in both an ambient club and an echoing acoustic performance space, Orton's that rare electronica lover who admits to owning the Carole King box set. If these contradictions seem a little confusing, they also add to Orton's appeal as a free-spirited artist. It's just the predictable minutiae of her life that she's having a little trouble with two hours behind on press interviews, Orton is contrite and a little giggly. "Here I've gone and messed up by getting lost," the Norfolk, England, native says, explaining her tardiness. "Let everyone know that I'm not being a prima donna."

The 28-year-old's incautious sense of time seems only fitting, considering that the primary theme of her third CID, Central Reservation (Arista/Deconstruction), is living for the moment. Orton says she wrote the title track in a giddy, sleep-deprived state while vacationing in Colombia during a solar eclipse. "I'd been with friends watching the sun come up," she recalls of the morning she wrote the song. "I was told that it was dangerous to walk home alone, but I did anyway. While walking, I suddenly felt this overpowering sense of love and freedom. I thought, Isn't it funny to be feeling these emotions in a city that is at war?"

Central Reservation is full of such dichotomous reflections-ones that are alternately beautiful and strange. This may be why Orton characterized the recording process as 1. cathartic" and "exhausting." In the album's most powerful moments, fear transforms into euphoria and loss into strength through the tiny brushstrokes of Orton's narratives. "I can still smell you on my fingers / And taste you on my breath," goes one such vivid snippet. Capped by the artist's characteristic sweet ache of a voice (which is at times strangely reminiscent of Karen Carpenter) is a dreamy mix of freeze-framed melancholy moments, eloquent folk strums and subtle electronic bleats.

The London dweller first gained critical acclaim two years ago with her debut CID, Trailer Park, which twined English folk sounds with drum machine dance beats. This musical meshing seems far less profound to Orton, who continues to work with acts as divergent as the Chemical Brothers and New Orleans pianist Dr. John. The latter played on Central Reservation, along with funk-folkie Ben Harper and Orton's longtime jazz idol Terry Callier.

Orton still finds being labeled a folk singer rather amusing. "I'm like, 'Yeah!' because it's the most uncool thing you can possibly be called," she laughs. "There are elements of folk and electronica in [the album], but that's not the whole story." Orton's varied musical styles include old-fashioned ballads like "Sweetest Decline" and the trippy jazz fusion found on "Couldn't Cause Me Harm."

As bittersweet as these song titles seem, the longlimbed, six-foot-tall singer contends that her more mournful lyrics don't define her. "I've had a lot of adversity in my life, but I'm into living. That's what's in my blood and in my nature," she explains. Orton only hints at her past, saying that she had "a pretty mad childhood." She and two older brothers were raised by, her mother in a small England town after Orton's father died when she was 11.

Whatever trials Orton has had, and even though a recent flare-up of Crohn's disease delayed her record's release by a month, she's not the type to gaze at the glass half-empty. Instead, she channels her energies into writing such tunes as "Pass in Time," which she describes in her airy, Cockney-inflected way as being about "people who have an amazing strength within them to overcome things."

For the moment, Orton's biggest hurdle appears to be reconciling herself to her decision not to pursue an acting career. The former thespian was discovered onstage by leading British electronic artist William Orbit, who, struck by the tone of her speaking voice, encouraged her to flex her talents as a singer. They wound up working together in the studio for two years. But it wasn't until 1994, when Orton lent her vocals to the techno talents of the Chemical Brothers on their Exit Planet Dust album, that she gained the confidence to think of songwriting as a profession.

Although she then left acting to concentrate on music, Orton often looks back. "Films are my biggest thing," she says, citing High Art as one of the movies she considers to be "fucking brilliant" at the moment. "Part of me still wonders about acting," she says mistily. "It's kind of like the love of my life that I only ever had as a friend."