Beth Orton Announces First Album In Six Years And Debut For Partisan Records, Weather Alive Out September 23rd

31 May, 2022Print

Beth Orton Announces First Album In Six Years And Debut For Partisan Records, Weather Alive Out September 23rd

TITLE TRACK “WEATHER ALIVE” AVAILABLE HERE

JOINS ALANIS MORISSETTE ON EU/UK ARENA TOUR THIS SUMMER, ANNOUNCES UK HEADLINING FALL DATES

English singer/songwriter Beth Orton today announces the September 23 release of her first album in six years and debut for Partisan Records, Weather Alive. For the first time in her career, Orton self-produced the entirety of Weather Alive from her home studio in London. Across eight tracks, Weather Alive hosts an incredible group of collaborators, including jazz poet Alabaster dePlume, The Smile drummer Tom Skinner, multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and Mercury Prize nominated bassist Tom Herbert of The Invisible. The musicians locked naturally into Orton’s sensibilities, expanding the new sonic world she created with vulnerability and adding nuanced emotional color to the music.

Following its soulful, hushed opening with Orton intoning over floating piano, lead single “Weather Alive” blooms with steadied percussion. As Orton’s crystalline vocals drift into spoken word, the song swells into an elegant and glassy groove.

Listen to title track/album opener “Weather Alive” and watch the new video directed by Eliot Lee Hazel HERE

“Through the writing of these songs and the making of this music, I found my way back to the world around me,” says Orton, “a way to reach nature and the people I love and care about.”

She continues: “This record is a sensory exploration that allowed for a connection to a consciousness that I was searching for. Through the resonance of sound and a beaten up old piano I bought in Camden Market while living in a city I had no intention of staying in, I found acceptance and a way of healing.”

Weather Alive has no precedent in Beth's previous work. The record conjures a deeply meditative atmosphere which is sustained long after the final note has evaporated. Her voice is held in dreamlike musical suspension as she delivers rich bursts of imagery: steps down to the water's edge, a Welsh choir on the wind, New York's summer streets.

Even when the lyrics lean into stream of consciousness, Orton’s signature storytelling is on frequent display, from the warm, Proust-referencing “Friday Night” (“Though we never do get too close, I still hold you now and then,” Orton sings) and the bittersweet recollections of “Arms Around a Memory” (“Didn’t we make a beautiful life in your eighth-floor walkup that night?”) to the shimmering ambivalence of the seven-minute closer “Unwritten” (“I was sure we made a promise, but you never know”).

Orton has long been regarded as possessing one of the most unique and expressive voices in music – a voice that has grown evermore rich and wise over time. Celebrated for her solo output and collaborations - with everyone from The Chemical Brothers to Bert Jansch, Andrew Weatherall and Jim O'Rourke - Orton has called the new album "a collaboration with time," adding “This old piano really spoke to me and held an emotional resonance I could explore in a way I wasn’t able to on guitar — a depth, or a voice, I’d never worked to before,” she enthuses. “For me, the mood and atmosphere were another instrument. They were always consistent.”

This Summer, Orton will join Alanis Morissette for her European and UK arena tour and play a handful of UK and EU festivals before a headline UK tour through October including a KOKO Camden show on October 9th. See the full list of tour dates below and more info here: https://bethortonofficial.com/tour

Stay tuned for more to come on Orton and Weather Alive soon.

PRE-ORDER/PRE-SAVE WEATHER ALIVE

WEATHER ALIVE TRACKLIST

1. Weather Alive

2. Friday Night

3. Fractals

4. Haunted Satellite

5. Forever Young

6. Lonely

7. Arms Around A Memory

8. Unwritten

BETH ORTON TOUR DATES