Beth Orton

Every so often something comes along that pulls that little bit harder on the heartstrings, gets that bit closer to emptying the tear ducts, makes that shiver and tingle resonate with a bigger pulse through your soul. Beth Orton may seem like the most unassuming young lady you could hope to meet, but give her 30 minutes with a six string and you're hers forever...

Beth Orton was born in December 1970 and drifted through her teens in a musical haze of Terry Callier, Neil Young, Nick Drake, Stone Roses, Rolling Stones, Carol King and Rickie Lee Jones, her early 20s immersed in everything from Radiohead to TLC Her first musical project was a one off single; a cover version of John Martyn's "Don't Wanna Know About Evil" recorded with William Orbit under the name of Spill. Her relationship with Mr Orbit continued with the Strange Cargo project where Beth co-wrote "Water From A Vine Leaf", (from Strange Cargo 3). She first came into the public eye guesting with Red Snapper on their first two singles, "Snapper" and "In Deep". Through the William Orbit days and onto Red Snapper the basis of the songs has always been just an acoustic guitar and vocals, leaving their roots exposed even when upderpinned by burbling techno pulses or sampled breakbeaks.

In the Summer of 1995 a bandless Beth hooked up with a group of friends who make up the backbone of Primal Scream (guitarist Andrew Innes, keyboard man Martin Duffy and bass player "H"). They helped her remodel and reshape "Live As You Dream" before Beth took time out to find a band of her very own and to sprinkle pure warmth over the top of a warped slo-mo backing track that two DJs were punting around, looking for the perfect voice to do justice to a set of lyrics they'd written. "Alive:Alone", became the last track on the hugely successful Chemical Brothers debut album, "Exit Planet Dust".

With a band that creates wild, textured music, Beth Orton has tried to distance herself from the growing 'scene' of leftfield female singer-songwriters. "Trailer Park" is Beth's debut album, a stand alone piece of rootsy beauty, created alone and brought to life with the help of Victor Van Vught (production, Tindersticks, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds) & Andrew Weatherall ("Screamadelica") (additional production), with a band consisting of Ali Friend (double bass), Wildcat Will (drums), Ted Barnes (guitar) and Lee Spencer (keyboards).

Let's just establish something from the outset - Beth Orton is a, wait for it, folk singer. Now you can forget your woolly cardigans, silly beards, mugs of cider and people with funny accents because folk is now cool. That's right, no more sneaking around in secret and hiding in corners flogging black market Steely Dan tickets. Now you can shout it from the rafters that you're a "folky" and you'll be the hippest thing since, well the last image impaired musical form which tried to become trendy. What's more, you don't need to be a woodwork teacher or a civil servant to like it, as Beth Orton proves. She's a bit of a babe you see (sorry ladies) and represents the new face of folk as it were. You need only look at her record label for proof of that as it's the trendy Heavenly which is better known as home to the equally hip Northern Uproar, Monkey Mafia and Saint Etienne. Whilst Orton has sung with the likes of The Chemical Brothers and doesn't exactly hang around in flowery skirts drinking Horlicks, there is no doubt that she is a folk artist. She has taken the more "listener friendly" elements of the genre and mixed them with a bit of trip hop to create a sound and album which should prove pleasantly surprising for many people. Orton herself has described Trailer Park as an album on which she got to do everything she had wanted to do and just "went for it". This comes across pretty strongly in tracks such as Tangent, How Far and Live As You Dream, combinations of folk guitar and up-beat, catchy choruses which will have you singing along in no time. So there you have it, contrary to popular belief, folk is very much alive and seemingly kicking. Who knows, tank tops may yet catch on.