Wordly Gifts

"Following the 2006 release of her fourth album Comfort Of Strangers, Beth Orton wasn't sure she'd ever make another record. But she continued to write, taking guitar lessons from the late folk legend Bert Jansch and stealing moments as her first child slept, all the while pushing deeper into her creative psyche without any thought of where the songs would live. A second child and marriage followed, and so too did Orton's fifth record, Sugaring Season, released late last year. A term picked up from her Vermont-raised husband, folk artist Sam Amidon, Orton explains how the title has come to serve as a metaphor for her transformation.

“I've spent time around people who spend time around maple trees. To be honest, I've not done a lot of maple hugging myself but yeah that's an expression that people would sort of like band about willy nilly and I'd be like, 'Hang on, that's so beautiful – what the hell does that mean?' And it just describes that time of year when spring starts burgeoning. I mean here [in London] spring starts burgeoning and it fucking snows on it – it's cruel!” Orton laughs. “Actually it is quite a difficult time – it is when it's still really muddy, it's still really cold and yes it can still snow and you know, people go into the woods and they tap the trees and it's just a slight change in the temperature, which causes the sap to rise and causes it to flow and so on and so forth. On many levels it's so beautiful,” she says. “Nature is a huge theme of the record, and cycles and seasons… Beginnings and endings.”

Hailed as the first lady of folktronica, Orton has moved progressively towards a traditional singer-songwriter role since the release of her third album Daybreaker in 2002. Sugaring Season presents a far more accomplished and intricate guitarist and a vocalist proficient in managing dynamic; alongside strings and piano both playful and mournful, Orton has crafted a delicately beautiful record. Funnily enough, Tom Rowlands of The Chemical Brothers – collaborators instrumental to her early success – co-wrote the almost implausible folk country romp Call Me The Breeze.

“He had a really nuts beat and I sang a little idea and then we got together and then we sort of muddled around,” she says. “And then I said, 'Look, I really just want to take this away and do something completely radical with it, which is put it on banjo and acoustic guitar' – which I did – and he actually loves the version, so it's very different from his and my version!”

Orton recorded Sugaring Season in Portland, Oregon with producer Tucker Martine, renowned for his work with the likes of Mudhoney, REM, Sufjan Stevens, Neko Case, and his wife Laura Veirs. “When he'd heard the songs and we spoke again and we talked about the musicians and who he would like to hear on the record, it was just like, 'Oh my god – this is a no brainer' as they say. It just came together; he's a fantastic individual, a lovely guy and just such a lovely person. Everyone gets a crush on him – man, woman or beast… So that's one side of it, and it's very good to work with someone like that – very present, his ear's always open, he's open minded, he wants to just make it work, you know; it's one of those situations which is always fantastic. And he was like Brian Blade on drums and I was like, 'Whoa, okay!' And then Sebastian Steinberg on bass, and Sebastian's someone I worked with a lot in the past and so that was exciting, and then Rob Burger [on keys] who played on my last record also lives in Portland, had just moved to Portland and was available, and so it just came together like that. I think we just were both so excited by the songs and then by the musicians that were available and up for doing it and then of course [guitarist] Marc Ribot is an old friend and work colleague of Tucker's and so he got involved as well, which was fantastic, and it just – I don't know – that's just how it kind of works with Tucker; it just kept rolling along, one good omen after another with him,” she says, a hint of a crush in her voice.

The result was an album that Orton loves and feels passionate about despite feeling that, after being let go by EMI six years ago, she might never record again. “I felt it was a culmination of arriving in a place that I really wanted to arrive to, if you know what I mean,” she says. “And sometimes that can be something quite obscure… like making a relationship or meeting someone – it's just like, 'Oh fuck, yeah this is somewhere I've hoped to get to but not even known it' probably half the time.”

Choosing Australia as the first territory in the world to road test the as-yet unreleased Sugaring Season on in January 2012, Orton was grateful for a warm reception for the material she played largely in solo mode with accompaniment for just a couple of songs by Amidon. “They were beautiful, amazing audiences; just so lovely, I really enjoyed it… I'm not just saying this, I swear, but I couldn't have asked for a nicer audience to come back to so I'm just really appreciative of that.”

Visiting this month by invitation of Heavenly Sounds, known for touring the likes of Seeker Lover Keeper, Lisa Mitchell and Julia Stone through Australia's holy venues, Orton is excited to continue her tradition of intimate shows. “This tour I'm doing, I'm actually doing completely solo because obviously it's churches and so on, and I've tried to do bands in those environments and it can just get so lost. I find it quite nerve-racking; the more kind of purist I get about it the more nerve-racking it is, so this time I'm coming right out with it – it's like putting words to music. It's just the most direct kind of connection that I can get to the music and to the songs and to the words and to the melodies and I hope therefore it's something that the audience can really feel as well, even when it's just less one person, you know, it makes such a huge difference… I did quite a bit [of solo work] in the period while I was writing the songs as well so it will be nice because I can include a couple of the songs that didn't actually make it on this record but I hope will make it on the new record…

“It was offered to me and I was just like, 'Fuck yeah, I'd love to do that!' The acoustics in the space of a church are like a gift from God,” she says with a wry chuckle. “It's a very, very beautiful space to work with.”

Beth Orton will be playing the following dates: