Sometimes you just plain forget about artists. Artists such as Beth Orton, who has been kicking around for more than two decades now, in and out of the spotlight, on the verge of packing it all in, but revealing herself anew with an album. Between her 1996 breakthrough album Trailer Park and her last release, 2012’s Sugaring Season, Orton increasingly turned her attentions away from folktronica to a purely traditional format, aided mainly by just an acoustic guitar. But, with Kidsticks, her seventh studio album (including the first one, 1993's Superpinkmandy, which has largely been forgotten about), the mother of two and 40-something Orton has returned wholeheartedly to her beginnings, with a work that completely dispenses with the guitar in favour of digital beats and effects, made in collaboration with Fuck Buttons' Andrew Hung, along with some live instrumentation added towards the end of the recording process.

Having de-camped to LA following Sugaring Season, Orton decided to experiment again with electronic music, using loops and sound effects. Beth explains the process thus; "We (Andrew and Beth) worked on it for ten days. I would play keyboards, he would change the sound. I wrote to these four bar loops (courtesy of Ableton and a Casio midi keyboard) and we sent stuff back and forwards. And eventually I wrote a lot of these songs that I felt needed some live instrumentation to bring these elements together. A guy called Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear) became involved. And then a wonderful man called David Rench mixed the record, and it all happened in California, which is a lovely place to work for me, in terms of space and light. I believe sonically, and in terms of being a songwriter, this is a very liberated record, and very freeing to make. Yeah, exciting."

With themes revolving around identity and the search for it, Orton has indeed fashioned a record that employs futuristic digital technology, and marries that to her warm, hazy, and engagingly worn-in voice, considered by one wag to be the best vocal for a Sunday hangover. It's busy, but spacious, expansive yet intimate, and an impressive return for this much-admired singer-songwriter.

Beginning with what sounds like the super-compressed drumming of Leftfield's Phat Planet, Orton’s voice kicks in on ‘Snow’ and a dubby digital bass harks back to the Chemical Brothers days when she lent her voice to tracks such as ‘Where Do I Begin’ and ‘Alive Alone’. "I astrally project myself into the life of someone else," sings Orton, before all manner of percussion, sound effects, multi-tracked vocals, keys and other paraphernalia build up a densely layered, almost claustrophobic track that feels life-affirming, despite the lyric’s sentiments. Follow-up ‘The Moon’ has Orton sounding a little like Tracey Thorn a la Everything But The Girl, unadorned bass guitar anchoring the subsequent warm electronica in depicting the effect of that celestial body, mentally and physically:

I know what the sun feels like on my skin
I want to know what the moon feels like within
I want to know how the moon gives life within
The same moon rises over me as you
and there's really not much about that we can do

On ‘Petals’, Orton's familiar voice is upfront in a mix of eerie ambient-techno effects, and sliding bass, lyrically comparing falling petals with falling tears, before crashing cymbals and a swelling symphony of menacing and abrasive sounds, both analogue and digital, paint a disturbing picture of downhearted inertia.

‘1973’ meanwhile is the brightest pop moment on the album, Orton reaching back to her childhood, perhaps inspired by her two children who are both still in single digits, and conjuring up an easy going psychedelic-electro-funk vibe, with an new wave sensibility.

Elsewhere she gets her Grace Jones on ‘Wave’, sings ethereally on the floaty effects-laden and blooming love song ‘Dawnstar’ and again on the rather drifting Falling, performs some random spoken word poetry on ‘Corduroy Legs’, which musically conjures up nature’s bounty, and the warm and melodious ‘Flesh and Blood’ feels like an electronic jam, with the bass playing freestyling in places. The album then closes with with the short instrumental title track, sticks and a repetitive keyboard motif, evoking childlike simplicity, and a nod to the fact that much of the recording took place with Orton’s kids right there in the makeshift studio.

Meticulously detailed, and yet often as light as a feather, ‘Kidsticks’ is notable for its experimental playfulness; the instrumentation and effects free-forming in places, Orton’s vocals being her most expansive and diverse yet, and ultimately anchoring the songs, beautifully complimenting the music.
Jeff Hemmings