The Ground Above Beth Orton

• 1 The Ground Above 08:34
• 2 Before I Knew 06:21
• 3 Cigarette Curls 06:41
• 4 Waiting 04:38
• 5 Celestial Light 05:22
• 6 I'll Miss You 05:47
• 7 Love You Right 05:04
• 8 Otherside 04:50
• Total Runtime 47:17

Info for The Ground Above

Following her acclaimed 2022 album 'Weather Alive', Beth Orton returns with another fully self-produced collection of songs, this time bringing in help from Shahzad Ismaily, Vernon Spring's Sam Beste, drummers Chris Vatalaro and Vishal Nayak, trumpet player Christos Styliandes and bassist Tom Herbert.

Orton sounded refreshed on 'Weather Alive'. Taking the production into her own hands for the first time, she crafted a personal world that was completely her own, weaving in old recordings of her parents and recording a busted piano she snapped up at Camden Market. The music felt like a form of catharsis, dreamily reflecting on years of boozing and raving, when she made her mark as a guest vocalist for artists like the Chemical Brothers and William Orbit. That mature, knowing air - the kind of mettle you build up only after real-world experience - hangs around 'The Ground Above', giving Orton's tender, heartfelt songs genuine power and proper weight. When she sings "I'm as invincible as grief, dancing cross a lake of loss," on the epic opener 'The Ground Above', you don't doubt her for a moment.

Orton's voice has always been distinct, a soulful rasp that's fragile one moment and sturdy the next, and it sounds as if she's finally found the right music to match it. On that eight-minute opener, it's quick syncopated drums that lodge themselves somewhere between Roni Size's 'New Forms' and Radiohead's 'Hail to the Thief', reversed, psychedelic guitar riffs, jazzy horn blasts and pillowy ambient textures. 'Cigarette Curls', meanwhile, slows things down, pairing her voice with smudged piano phrases and smoke-y rhythms. She breezes past the shape of classic soul pop on 'Waiting', even taking on a half-sung chorus, but sounds most comfortable when she strips down the instrumentation even further, crooning over brushed percussion and euphoric pads on the gorgeous 'I'll Miss You'.

"English singer-songwriter enjoys a rich and compelling second wind of creativity as she explores the corners of the human psyche." (musicOMH)

"With ‘The Ground Above’, Orton once again proves herself to be one of this country’s most quietly adventurous voices. Intimate, thoughtful and gorgeously-rendered, it’s a record that confronts love, grief and mortality with rare grace, while continuing a three-decade tradition of artistic and spiritual evolution." (Clash)

Beth Orton

Elizabeth Caroline Orton, commonly known as Beth Orton, is a BRIT Award–winning English singer-songwriter. Known for her "folktronica" sound, which mixes elements of folk and electronica, she was initially recognised for her collaborations with William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers in the mid 1990s — but these were not Orton's first recordings. She released a solo album, Superpinkymandy, in 1993. Since the album was only released in Japan, it went largely unnoticed by international audiences. Her second solo album, Trailer Park, garnered much critical acclaim in 1996. With the release of the albums Central Reservation (1999) and the 2002 UK top 10 album Daybreaker, Beth developed a devoted fan base. On her 2006 release, Comfort of Strangers, she has moved towards a more folk-based sound and away from the electronic sound of past albums.

American films and television programmes such as Felicity, How to Deal, Charmed, Dawson's Creek, Vanilla Sky and Grey's Anatomy have featured her music and provided her with exposure to an American mainstream audience.

Born in East Dereham, Norfolk, on 14th December 1970, she then moved to Norwich where she was then raised on a pig farm. In 1985 she moved to East London. Her father, an architectural draughtsman, left her mother, an artist and political activist, when Beth was eleven, she lived with her mother and her two brothers. Her father died shortly afterwards. In 1989 after the death of her mother from cancer Beth travelled to Thailand, where she resided with Buddhist nuns. Beth was late onto the music scene having previously worked as a waitress at Pizza Hut and even owned her own catering company. She was more interested in acting during her early career, having enrolled at the Anna Scher Theatre School, and she spent some time touring ‘Une Saison en Enfer’ playing Rimbaud's lover with a fringe theatre company throughout the UK, Russia and Ukraine.

Her first contribution in music came when she met William Orbit at a London nightclub, when he tried to borrow a cigarette from her. They began a relationship shortly after, and he invited her to do some spoken word for his current Strange Cargo project, but she drunkenly decided to sing also. Possibly the best-known work from that time is "Water from a Vine Leaf", which she co-wrote and which was released as a limited-edition single. As a duet called Spill, William Orbit and Beth released a cover version of John Martyn's "Don't Wanna Know 'Bout Evil", this was the first song that they recorded together, initially released in Japan, it was re-released in the UK in 1997.

This album contains no booklet.