Beth Orton was one of the first artists I saw on the Saturday of my first year at Glastonbury in 1999. We’d found more of our friend group by that point, running into them on the Friday night. Finding your friends at Glastonbury pre-mobile phones was always completely random. You either had to have a plan in place before you got to the festival (unlikely), you could leave them a note at the designated meeting point in the central market (which I don’t think I ever did), or you could just bump into them accidentally.
And so, with a few more members in our group, we went along to the Pyramid Stage to see Beth Orton. This was a notable experience for me, not just for being introduced to Orton’s music (and that beautiful voice), but for her starting the set wearing a pair of sunglasses in the shape of Texas leading my friend Kaj to joke ‘Look at the state of those glasses’ – a gag I still think about every time I think of Beth Orton.
I don’t think I ever bought any of her albums at the time – although I did fall in love with a dance remix of Central Reservation so much that I included it on a mix CD I gave to my now-wife back in 2004. Still, without owning any of her albums, she now resided in the part of my brain set aside for artists I liked.
Then she disappeared off my radar. I remember hearing that she suffered from Crohn’s Disease, and wondered whether her illness had somehow stopped her career in its tracks. Or maybe it was because my musical radar went on the fritz around the early 2000s.
In 2022, Orton’s studio albums TRAILER PARK and CENTRAL RESERVATION were reissued for Record Store Day; an instant purchase and a couple of non-soundtrack records I was happy to pick up that year. I’ve never heard her first album SUPERPINKYMANDY – produced by her then-boyfriend William Orbit – but then again it sounds like most other people haven’t, having only been released in Japan. TRAILER PARK felt like it was her introduction proper back in the late ‘90s, despite what Wikipedia might claim.
It’s the first weekend of spring here in New Zealand. The winter has been pretty arduous here, particularly after a summer of floods and cyclones, and so this record sounds extra special with the sun streaming in through the window. It reminds me of the first time I saw her, on an impossibly hot and sunny Saturday in Somerset.
Hit: Someone’s Daughter
Hidden Gem: Touch Me With Your Love
Vinyl Stylus 