"Weather Alive" By Beth Orton
With time, northern English musician Beth Orton has changed. She emerged in the late 90s; her 1996 freshman album Trailer Park and 1999 sophomore album Central Reservation became pillars of the folktronica sound alongside fellow northern English musician David Gray. Twenty years, though, is a long time in music, and Beth Orton has taken the time to refine her style with each project. Categorizing her genre has always been a struggle. Orton’s work exists on a spectrum between electronic and folk, varying with each successive release. Her latest release and eighth studio album, the 8-track Weather Alive, brings a distinct character to it. It is a new sound brought to her catalog the likes of which hasn’t occurred since those early days of her career. As a result, it is far and away her best release this century.
From the opening track, the hallmarks of Orton’s craft — the intense, raw vulnerability of the lyrics, the blend of electronic and traditional instrumentation, and the quiet, haunting wail of her voice — are evident. However, with age comes evolution, and this album is no exception. Her voice sounds more weathered than before, and the pace of the songs has slowed down. At this particular stage in her career, Orton’s songs unspool and stretch out, allowing the listener to truly soak in the atmosphere she creates. This new batch of songs are also anchored by the piano instead of the acoustic guitar, giving this album a sound unique and separate from the folk tracks of her earlier work.
The opening track is the title track, a gorgeous and sprawling seven minute piece punctuated initially with soft synths, bells, xylophones, and horns before swelling with the support of electric guitar and percussion. Orton wraps the listener in a dreamlike haze completely enraptured by the beauty of nature as she sings: “The weather’s so beautiful outside/Almost makes me wanna cry/The weather’s so beautiful outside/Don’t it make you wanna cry?” Orton is reaching out for connection, hoping she can find it in nature and in love. The second track, “Friday Night,” continues the dreamlike state, opening with a reference to Marcel Proust. Orton seems to move through the limits of memory. Memory only brings a person back to a past moment partially, but never completely. Time marches on, and Orton seems to embrace the present moment, remembering that she is real; she has bones. Even though her unnamed lover has left, she can feel their presence. She still has love to give. “Fractals” brings a more percussive groove to the album, but the motif of dreams shifts from implicit in the first two tracks to explicit in this song. References to make-believe and hallucinations, coupled with the skipping beat, indicate a fractured, scattered image that all culminates in a belief in the magic of true love.
The pieces come together, and, quietly, triumphant horns indicate that togetherness from the fractals of the beginning. “Haunted Satellite” is one of the shorter tracks. Orton compares the human experience to that of a satellite at the whims of the power of nature and the universe. Storms and the seasons wash over the lyrics as Orton’s sound shifts firmly into a more rhythmic and percussive area. Its brevity and departure from the dreamscapes painted in the previous tracks shift the album into its second half. “Nature’s got a bigger gun than anyone,” Orton sings, an ominous way to close out the track as a minute-long instrumental ensues.
Kicking off the second half of the album, “Forever Young '' is the most familiar territory for listeners of Orton’s past work. The synths and percussion are reminiscent of her biggest hit “Stars All Seem to Weep.” It is fitting for a song that is drenched in nostalgia on the lyrical level, and dealing with the theme of youth throughout the track. Orton wants her time back, desperately, but knows she can’t quite get there. “Lonely” sees Orton confront the themes she has hinted at throughout the album thus far in their barest, rawest form. Orton is drifting rudderless in the vast open sea of loneliness. Lyrical references to nakedness, to nostalgia, to exposure drive the point home.
The instrumentation of this track is understandably bare bones in comparison to those that came before. “Arms Around a Memory” follows Orton’s quasi-return from her emotional abyss, being pushed by the song’s other character to quit trying to relive her memories. Orton frames this prodding as verging on gaslighting: “And if you get to questioning my credibility/ Like you’re the reliable witness to what I feel.” She moves through descriptions of broken dreams and unfulfilled prophecies, but ultimately settles on the idea that the memories with this person remain sweet regardless. In the closing track “Unwritten,” Orton feels incomplete.
Ultimately, she is still waiting for the dust to settle, perhaps, on her career, on the events of her life. There are still things she cannot quite make sense of yet. Perhaps she never will. Lyrics referencing unsolved puzzles, untold hearts, and holding your cards close to your chest, Orton weaves a closing statement of clenching doubt and uncertainty from the jaws of certitude. Ultimately though, it is a song of acceptance, resignation to being unwritten, forgotten. But as she says in “Unwritten,” the past “ain’t getting undone.” Orton allows some folk-inspired word choice from her past to peek through one last time.
— Evan Manley