Beth Orton
Comfort of Strangers (Astralwerks)
By Dina Zwiebel
Published: February 16th, 2006 | 12:52pm
Has Beth Orton gone soft with her latest, Comfort of Strangers? The 35-year-old Brit, known as a neo-Joni Mitchell with trip-hop beats, has decided on a different approach for her fourth album where the electronic sounds have now disappeared. The record is a showcase for the emotional depth of Orton’s voice and lyrical expression. It is her most consistent work to date, where the 14 tracks sinuously weave themes of vulnerability and truthfulness.
Renaissance music man Jim O’Rourke produced Comfort and Orton has said that they bonded during the making of the album, which may contribute to its effortless flow. He inserts his touch on Comfort, rather palpably at times, and certain songs, like “Absinthe” and “Rectify,” sound akin to those by his band, Loose Fur, with their stripped-down, organic tone; O’Rourke replaces the trip-hop of Orton’s previous work with the same soft, pulsing rhythm of keyboard and acoustic guitar.
Until now Orton has refrained from totally exposing herself in her songs, which has ultimately been part of her appeal. In “She Cries Your Name” (from 1996’s Trailer Park), she uses a third-person narrative instead of the first-person, weeping voice of a scorned lover: “She cries your name / How long can this love remain?” One of Orton’s gifts has been her ability to remove herself from her lyrics, allowing the listener to relate to the emotion in them without sinking into the despondency the words evoke.
In addition to the absence of a confessional tone, Orton’s previous albums have also included a couple songs that are more light-hearted. “Sweetest Decline,” from 1999’s Central Reservation, is best reserved for a lazy day on a hammock, its saccharine melody in line with its sentiment: “What’s the use in regrets / Just lessons we haven’t learned yet.” In Daybreaker ’s “God Song,” the words are less cheerful, but the music does not let their sadness bear itself: “He’s my man and I’ve been doing him wrong / And I’m praying for the strength not to carry on,” with the sweet voices in this harmonious chorus belying the injustice of her actions. Before Comfort, one could not listen to an entire Orton album and remain in contemplative mode — apparently life should not be taken too seriously.
However, things have become more serious for Orton, or maybe she simply decided it’s time to stop lapsing into imagery if blatant honesty can be more cathartic. On Comfort, her voice is more personal and emotionally apparent and its songs have a traditional songwriter tone: you are doing this to me and this is how it makes me feel. She alternately asks for love to come find her, to unite her with someone from whom she is disconnected, or to help her see things as they are instead of how they could be. The lyrics hit closer to home, without electronic beats, which in hindsight seems like a safety net for Orton, a layering device so that the power of her own emotion is muted.
Orton eases us into the increased honesty of Comfort’s songs with opener “Worms.” It’s a tune with a chomping keyboard-driven cadence beneath allegorical lyrics like “Worms don’t dance / They haven’t got the balls” and “Chickens don’t fly / But they have got the wings.” The animal metaphors refer the listener to mortal capacity, which leads to the Eden chorus: “Now I’m your apple eating heathen / The original sin.” It’s a pregnant sentiment, one that includes imagery but provides a self-deprecating blow. On Comfort, Orton yearns for love, but believes herself somewhat undeserving, and if what she sings in “Rectify” is true (“I don’t want nobody knowing how the hurt in me works”), then the making of this album must have been a struggle to get through.
Comfort’s title track refers to Orton’s habit of dancing around her true feelings (“Say what you mean, don’t tell it like it could be),” and she not only strays from the album’s imagery in the track but speaks against it. Nonetheless, it does not sound easy for her to do so. The album ends with “Pieces of Sky,” in which she sends out a farewell of sorts: “When it's over, it's over / I best get busy living, been a long time gone.” She could very well be saying goodbye to this raw kind of lyric crafting.
Full of reflection, writing Comfort may have taken its toll on Orton, but its focus has made it beautiful. By shedding her songwriting inhibitions, Orton has added a most powerful work to her oeuvre.
Issue #27
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