TAS Rated 4/5 Music, 4/5 Sonics in the February 2013 Issue of The Absolute Sound!
First New Album in Six Years! Hypnotic Sound & Deep Soulfulness! Includes Bonus CD of Entire Album!
English singer-songwriter Beth Orton writes pensive songs for her acoustic guitar and hires producers from electronic music to add a modern edge to her recordings, making her one of the leading mid-90s exponents of folktronica.
Beth Orton makes her ANTI- debut with Sugaring Season, an album that captures the classic hypnotic sound that won her prominence, at the same time as it shows a singer at the full maturity of her instrument, with a deep soulfulness and an intimate sense of detail. Sugaring Season, with producer Tucker Martine at the helm, is also Beths most musically ambitious and accomplished album to date. Much of the record combines rich orchestral textures with a masterful jazz rhythm section and modal folk guitars, music hall piano and heartbreaking R&B ballads, while tracks like Magpie, with its massive, loping groove will remind fans that there are Chemical Brothers in Beths past. Sugaring Season is in many ways a culmination of Ortons art of contradictions, a full circle from that first John Martyn cover she recorded with William Orbit back in the day soulful and ambient, lush and bittersweet, starkly still and fiercely rhythmic.
"Producer Tucker Martine helmed all ten tracks at his studio in Portland, Oregon. He and Orton enlisted a 'dream band of new and old friends.' The players on these sessions include jazz über drummer Brian Blade, guitarists Marc Ribot and Ted Barnes, keyboardist Rob Burger, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and folksinger Sam Amidon helping out on vocals, and chamber strings. The full-band approach has become a natural fit for Orton." - Thom Jurek, allmusic.com
"On the delicate 'Mystery,' the final track of her first album in six years, Beth Orton calls to mind early Joni Mitchell. Up to that point, the most obvious vocal reference is the same as it was on the English singer-songwriter's five previous studio albums - sultry Dusty Springfield... Sugaring Season's aesthetic harkens to the jazz-inflected folk-rock of the era of her birth (in 1970) - to Jansch's seminal band Pentagle and Roberta Flack's soulful debut First Take. Orton mentioned those inspirations to producer Tucker Martine... Martine gave Orton's ten new songs sonic breadth and depth perfectly fitted to the variegated arrangements and moods, creating an original, absorbing update of a sensibility made timeless by Pentangle, Sandy Denny's Fairport Convention, and Joni Mitchell." - Music 4/5, Sonics 4/5 - Derk Richardson, The Absolute Sound, February 2013, p. 132
Features:
Vinyl LP
Gatefold Jacket
Includes Free CD
Full Lyrics
Produced by Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket)
Musicians:
Beth Orton, vocals, acoustic guitar
Rob Burger, piano, harmonium, pump organ. Wurlitzer, accordion
Brian Blade, drums, percussion
Sebastian Steinberg, acoustic bass, electric bass
Selections:
Side One:
1. Magpie
2. Dawn Chorus
3. Candles
4. Something More Beautiful
5. Call Me the Breeze
Side Two:
1. Poison Tree
2. See Through Blue
3. Last Leaves of Autumn
4. State of Grace
5. Mystery
First New Album in Six Years! Hypnotic Sound & Deep Soulfulness! Includes Bonus CD of Entire Album!
English singer-songwriter Beth Orton writes pensive songs for her acoustic guitar and hires producers from electronic music to add a modern edge to her recordings, making her one of the leading mid-90s exponents of folktronica.
Beth Orton makes her ANTI- debut with Sugaring Season, an album that captures the classic hypnotic sound that won her prominence, at the same time as it shows a singer at the full maturity of her instrument, with a deep soulfulness and an intimate sense of detail. Sugaring Season, with producer Tucker Martine at the helm, is also Beths most musically ambitious and accomplished album to date. Much of the record combines rich orchestral textures with a masterful jazz rhythm section and modal folk guitars, music hall piano and heartbreaking R&B ballads, while tracks like Magpie, with its massive, loping groove will remind fans that there are Chemical Brothers in Beths past. Sugaring Season is in many ways a culmination of Ortons art of contradictions, a full circle from that first John Martyn cover she recorded with William Orbit back in the day soulful and ambient, lush and bittersweet, starkly still and fiercely rhythmic.
"Producer Tucker Martine helmed all ten tracks at his studio in Portland, Oregon. He and Orton enlisted a 'dream band of new and old friends.' The players on these sessions include jazz über drummer Brian Blade, guitarists Marc Ribot and Ted Barnes, keyboardist Rob Burger, bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and folksinger Sam Amidon helping out on vocals, and chamber strings. The full-band approach has become a natural fit for Orton." - Thom Jurek, allmusic.com
"On the delicate 'Mystery,' the final track of her first album in six years, Beth Orton calls to mind early Joni Mitchell. Up to that point, the most obvious vocal reference is the same as it was on the English singer-songwriter's five previous studio albums - sultry Dusty Springfield... Sugaring Season's aesthetic harkens to the jazz-inflected folk-rock of the era of her birth (in 1970) - to Jansch's seminal band Pentagle and Roberta Flack's soulful debut First Take. Orton mentioned those inspirations to producer Tucker Martine... Martine gave Orton's ten new songs sonic breadth and depth perfectly fitted to the variegated arrangements and moods, creating an original, absorbing update of a sensibility made timeless by Pentangle, Sandy Denny's Fairport Convention, and Joni Mitchell." - Music 4/5, Sonics 4/5 - Derk Richardson, The Absolute Sound, February 2013, p. 132
Features:
Vinyl LP
Gatefold Jacket
Includes Free CD
Full Lyrics
Produced by Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket)
Musicians:
Beth Orton, vocals, acoustic guitar
Rob Burger, piano, harmonium, pump organ. Wurlitzer, accordion
Brian Blade, drums, percussion
Sebastian Steinberg, acoustic bass, electric bass
Selections:
Side One:
1. Magpie
2. Dawn Chorus
3. Candles
4. Something More Beautiful
5. Call Me the Breeze
Side Two:
1. Poison Tree
2. See Through Blue
3. Last Leaves of Autumn
4. State of Grace
5. Mystery
