WHEN musicians talk of going back to their roots, usually it provides an excuse to pull out a battered old acoustic guitar to create some bare bones music. In singer-songwriter Beth Orton’s case, however, it has meant something very different.
Having relocated to California a couple of years ago, Beth began experimenting with a series of electronic loops that would eventually come together as her new album, Kidsticks, whose songs will be showcased at the Deer Shed Festival 7 on July 24 at Baldersby Park, Topcliffe.
Released tomorrow on the Anti-records label, the record was inspired both by the wide-open nature of Los Angeles and the spirit of Beth’s earliest electronic recordings with producers William Orbit, Andrew Weatherall and Kieran Hebden, as well as groove-based music with Red Snapper.
Kidsticks repositions Beth’s voice inside ten audacious, playful and kinetic songs on a resolutely focused album, where she reworks the songwriting process with wide-eyed, open-minded glee at the age of 45.
Beth Orton's album sleeve for Kidsticks
Kidsticks was co-produced by Beth and Andrew Hung, from F**k Buttons, and was recorded with various musician friends in California, such as George Lewis Jr. from Twin Shadow on electric guitars, Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor on backing vocals and bass guitar and Dustin O’Halloran from A Winged Victory For The Sullen, who provided piano and string arrangements.
Vocals were recorded by Alain Johannes, who has worked with Queens Of The Stone Age and the Mark Lanagan Band, and mixed by David Wrench, whose credits include Caribou and Hot Chip.
Beth’s 1996 debut, Trailer Park, pioneered a synthesis of electronic and acoustic songs and its 1999 follow-up, Central Reservation, garnered her a Brit Award for best British female. Kidsticks will be her first album since 2012’s Sugaring Season and its track listing will be Snow, Moon, Petals, 1973, Wave, Dawnstar, Falling, Corduroy Legs, Flesh And Blood and Kidsticks.
Beth will return to Yorkshire on her autumn tour to play Leeds Beckett University Students’ Union on October 3. Tickets for Leeds are on sale at bethortonofficial.com/tickets; tickets for Deer Shed, deershedfestival.com/#tickets
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