Beth Orton

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Acclaimed British singer-songwriter Beth Orton has signed worldwide to Anti-Records (Tom Waits etc.). Orton's songwriting and emotionally evocative vocal style - infusing intimate folk reminiscent of Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell with lilting and subtly atmospheric pop flourishes - has continuously evolved.

Beth has just announced the release her first LP since 2006's Comfort Of Strangers in new record Sugaring Season. Out via Anti- Records on 1 Oct, it finds Orton trialling a more acoustic sound than you might expect.

Says Beth: "I stretched myself as a singer on this record and used voices I never have before as a writer. A lot of the writing on this record happened in the dead of night, when spiders mend their webs, with an infant asleep in the next room...as a result, my writing became a secret again: illicit and my own."



"I set up a little studio in the back garden and just got deeper into what I was making." says Orton. She had also begun taking weekly guitar lessons from her friend and collaborator, folk legend Bert Jansch, who introduced her to the alternate guitar tunings which were a minor revelation.

Along the way, Orton had become fearless in her pursuit of her muse and deeply devoted to her songwriting process. An admirer of Tucker Martine's work on his wife Laura Viers' Carbon Glacier, Orton reached out to him and found that the producer was receptive to the artistic parameters of Orton's inspirations, Roberta Flack's First Take and Pentangle's The Pentangle.

"Sugaring Season is about the time of year when the trees are tapped for maple syrup. It takes a lot of sap to make a little bit of syrup. But what makes the sap sweet and what makes it flow are these long, cold nights alternating with those ever so slightly warmer days - beauty and melancholy mixed together - and after that, that’s when the sweetness comes."

Her early high profile collaborations with William Orbit and The Chemical Brothers helped pioneer folktronica and heralded the widespread recognition soon to come her way. But it was the release of her breakout album, Trailer Park, which established Beth as a unique and formidable figure.

Subsequent critically lauded releases Central Reservation, Daybreaker, and Comfort of Strangers confirmed the stature of Beth's craft and talent.

Orton has twice been nominated for the Mercury Prize and the BRITS, winning 'Best British Female' at the latter in 2000. Beth has also recorded tracks with Bert Jansch, Ryan Adams, Terry Callier and Beck.

Currently finishing songs for a new album, Beth reports that she is "excited and happy to be on a label that is home to so many artists in my record collection. I can't wait to get on and make a new record myself, to bring the songs I've been writing over the last couple of years to life."

Anti- is the perfect label to bring Beth Orton's special talent and musical vision to full fruition. Anti-Records president Andy Kaulkin comments: "We are thrilled to be working with such a creative and unique artist as Beth Orton. We believe she fits perfectly with the label. After hearing some of her new songs, I think this record could be a defining moment in Beth's already remarkable career."

www.beth-orton.net
www.anti.com/artists/view/79