Even before the release of her first album in 1996, there was plenty of buzz about Beth Orton. She had sung on two albums by her then-boyfriend, electronica musician and producer William Orbit and on the debut by hit electronica outfit The Chemical Brothers.
What few knew then was that the British singer with the angelic voice was also a songwriter and one with more than a passing interest in folk.
Her 1996 debut album Trailer Park was dubbed “folktronica” for Orton’s ability to blend both sounds on some songs. The album and the follow up, 1999’s Central Reservation were nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and in 2000 she won best female artist at the Brit Awards. Her 2002 album Daybreaker sold even more.
But for the past decade Orton’s output has slowed. Her next album Comfort of Strangers, where she more strongly embraced traditional folk, was released in 2006 and her newest album, Sugaring Season, late last year.
One reason for the long gestation for Sugaring Season is Orton’s home life. She had a daughter Nancy in late 2006 and a son, Arthur in 2011, having married American indie musician Sam Amidon.
“There’s been a lot of change,” she jokes from her London home. Orton now juggles her music career with the banal realities of modern parenting. Several times in the interview she fears the phone she’s using will suddenly run out of power because her son took it off the charger.
“I think having kids can kind of takes the skin off you, you know. It leaves you quite raw and that could be really good for me for writing, I found. It’s very honest.”
That honesty is something Orton says she likes to “throw into” the songs, including those on Sugaring Season. The album includes a stark, piano-based ballad Last Leaves of Autumn, and it’s one of the most heart-felt songs she’s ever recorded.
On it Orton sings: I’m ready for a first time feeling/Something I can believe in.
It sounds like a declaration.
“That is a particularly personal song. That is very personal,” she says. “There’s no persona. I often find that people are on the same page as when I wrote [a song] and the way people respond.”
Not all of Orton’s songs are as overtly personal and for her to be so direct can be a challenge. “But at the same time that’s the thing with music. It gives you that platform. It makes you brave.”
Orton has to be brave in other matters. For a time she suffered from Crohn’s disease – an inflammatory bowel disease.
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But she’s free of it, she’s said, having “eaten myself well”. From the time of Comfort of Strangers, she also spent more time improving herself as a musician. Orton guest starred on the 2006 album The Black Swan by Scottish folk legend Burt Jansch. Jansch, who died in 2011, isn’t widely known outside folk circles but influenced big names including Paul Simon, Elton John, Nick Drake, Neil Young and most recently American band Fleet Foxes.
But Orton went one step further than collaborating with Jansch. Not long after her daughter was born, she got him to give her guitar lessons. “At first I would sit there and freeze in abject terror. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. I kept thinking ‘oh god’.
“But then at the same time we started learning songs together and then the songs became songs for his new record and then we did some touring. I kind of just put myself over to him. I thought ‘I can’t think of no better place for me to be right now’. My little girl was tiny, so I just sort of spent time with him working on music really.”
Orton, who also worked with American jazz, soul and folk guitarist Terry Callier who died last year, says she feels fortunate having worked with Jansch when she did. “I had no idea he was going to fall ill. I was very glad I handed that time over to a great record.”
She laughs at mention of “folktronica”, one of the labels critics gave to her early songs. “It was a way to try and describe [it] and none of them were bad. They were describing something interesting. It was flattering really. That’s what it was. If it was correct or not correct, it was still something.”
But the fact she was embraced quickly by audiences and won awards came as a complete surprise. “I really didn’t have a clue,” Orton says.
For a time she was in state of denial that it was actually happening. “I had no idea. It was quite scary, like going and doing [giant music festival] Glastonbury.
“I was like ‘come on’. I was literally holding on to the back of the tour bus, being dragged along, going ‘I can’t do this’. Then arriving there and [seeing] the audience [and thinking] ‘oh, my lord’. Then being taken along by the audience. It was so lovely. They were just into it. That was just amazing really.”
Now Orton’s used to crowds, big and small. This year it included a show at London’s Royal Albert Hall with American folk rocker Ryan Adams. But unlike Orton’s previous band-backed New Zealand shows including Big Day Out, her gig at the relatively intimate Old St Paul’s in Wellington tomorrow is more likely to showcase her as acoustic soloist.
“Less is definitely more in that environment. You work with what there is really. It’s an more open way of playing and more spontaneous.”
THE DETAILS
Beth Orton plays Old St Paul’s, Wellington, tomorrow and Holy Trinity Cathedral, Auckland on Saturday.
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