Beth Orton reinvents sound in late-career surge — SkimNews
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- Beth Orton performs a set dominated by her 2022 and 2023 albums Weather Alive and The Ground Above, largely bypassing her earlier hit material despite audience nostalgia.
- Beth Orton adopts a seated position behind a keyboard for much of the show, emphasizing a shift from her traditional singer-songwriter roots to a more experimental, synth- and rhythm-driven sound.
- The Ground Above's title track blends ambient synth with jazz-drum’n’bass hybrid rhythms, reflecting Orton’s re-engagement with electronic and dance-influenced textures since her mid-2010s artistic reboot.
- Christos Stylianides' trumpet playing serves as a central sonic element, ranging from Jon Hassell-esque tonal coloration to heavily processed bursts of white noise, shaping the atmospheric quality of the performance.
- Tom Herbert and Sam Beste, both associated with London’s experimental jazz scene and Cafe Oto, form part of Orton’s backing band, reinforcing the music’s improvisational and avant-garde leanings.
- Beth Orton manipulates the timbre of her voice throughout the set, amplifying its fragility and huskiness, and at times submerging her lyrics so that her voice functions more as an instrument than a narrative vehicle.
- Otherside, the set-closing track, builds into an anthemic, soulful climax that conveys a sense of hard-won optimism, drawing an enthusiastic response from the audience despite the absence of older hits.
Why it matters: At 50+, Beth Orton is defying expectations for legacy artists by prioritizing new, challenging work over nostalgia, proving that late-career reinvention can yield some of the most vital music of an artist’s life—offering both creative agency and emotional resonance for aging musicians in an industry fixated on youth.
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