Beth Orton Opening Act: Pneumatic Tubes

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Her voice trembles and catches, scrapes and cracks, smears some words and obsessively repeats others as she conjures elusive but intense emotions.

—New York Times

British singer-songwriter Beth Orton has long been praised as having one of the most unique and expressive voices in music, and her voice has grown richer and wiser over time. Her 1996 debut, Trailer Park, pioneered a synthesis of electronic and acoustic sounds, and its 1999 follow-up, Central Reservation, found international success. Further albums, like the Jim O’Rourke-produced Comfort of Strangers and 2016’s largely electronic Kidsticks, deepened the breadth of her craft.

Many musicians turn inward when the world around them seems chaotic and unreliable. For Orton, music re-emerged as a tethering force when her own life felt more tumultuous than ever. The foundations of the songs on her stunning 2022 album, Weather Alive, are nothing more than her voice and an upright piano installed in a shed in her garden, and they conjure a deeply meditative atmosphere that remains long after the final note has evaporated.