BETH ORTON: TRAILER PARK (1996)
1) She Cries Your Name; 2)
Tangent; 3) Don't Need A Reason; 4) Live As You Dream; 5) Sugar Boy; 6) Touch
Me With Your Love; 7) Whenever; 8) How Fair; 9) Someone's Daughter; 10) I Wish
I Never Saw The Sunshine; 11) Galaxy Of Emptiness.
The «official authorized» debut album. After
her stint with Orbit, followed by a collaboration with The Chemical Brothers on
Exit Planet Dust, Beth Orton decides
that, after all, she is a
singer-songwriter first, and a publicity agent for modern electronic sounds
only second. Let all those other guys
come up with their silly club rhythms — Beth Orton is an artist, and you need
to sit down and listen to her artistry. Blowing your mind is a nobler option
than sweeping you off your feet. Besides, with all those Orbit-style noises and
echoes, she was miscast way too strongly as the «mystery lady», when in reality
she is so open and sentimental.
The new album, produced by Victor Van Vugt
(formerly responsible for several Nick Cave LPs) and DJ-cum-remixer Andrew
Weatherall, is not at all free from modern rhythms — it is seriously funky and,
in places, trip-hoppy. It did, in fact, earn Beth's music the tag of
«folktronica», although it must be acknowledged that there is a lot more
«folk» here than «-tronica» where it used to be vice versa during Beth's stint
with Orbit. But the basic idea, a combination of folk motives,
singer-songwriter imagery, and contemporary production, could work very well,
if...
...if, well, the major problem of all of Beth's
post-PinkyMandy output weren't so
irritatingly simple: it is, for lack of a more original word, boring. Sometimes more, sometimes less,
but ultimately, Beth Orton's musical and general artistic image from now on
would lack «that one special ingredient» (or those several special
ingredients) that is necessary for an artist with his or her own say in this
world. The music has a little bit of everything — respectable songwriting
ideas, acceptable lyrical agenda, enjoyable singing voice, understandable taste
in arrangements — but unless you make a conscious effort, the songs do not really
stick. There is nothing offensive about them (as in, say, an
aggressively-feminist Ani di Franco way of constructing songs from knives instead of hooks and pretending
to call it «music»), but if we're talking of ways to translate human and
artistic personality into musical form, I think that, off the top of my head,
Suzanne Vega, for instance, comes across sounding way more «deep» and «interesting».
The main problem, I guess, is that Orton's songs
sound as if her chief influence were someone like Emmylou Harris — gallantly
embroidered country-folk-pop with individual sensitivity — but without the true
rootsy depth required to make the songs sound alive and natural. Something like
ʽWheneverʼ, which completely eschews modern rhythms and relies entirely on acoustic
guitars and vocal harmonies to achieve its goals — a song that could have been
written by just about anybody circa 1971-72 and anytime later, pleasant and professional,
but instantly forgettable. Or ʽDon't Need A Reasonʼ, quietly waltzing along to
an unassuming lead fiddle and then to an equally unassuming orchestrated
background. Nice, life-asserting, and about as dull as its basic message:
"So I've been calling angels down to Earth / Because I believe we need
them". If I were an angel, I'd certainly think twice before responding to
such a call.
The basic rule of thumb about Trailer Park, as well as most of the
rest of Beth's catalog, is this: the less she concentrates on «soul», «message»,
and «humanism» and the more she concentrates on «technicalities», be it melodic
hooks or sonic tapestry, the better she gets. Case in point: the new version of
ʽShe Cries Your Nameʼ, completely recast from its early «cosmic trip-hop» image
with Orbit into a slightly Eastern-tinged psycho-folk shape, where acoustic
rhythms are complemented with a droning, sliding strings arrangement that, at
times, sounds almost like a tribute to George Harrison's ʽWithin You Without
Youʼ. I am afraid I still prefer the original and all of its hauntingly
bubbling keyboard inventions, but the reinvention is no slouch, either, and it
managed to crack the singles market and put the lady on the scene, after all.
The «meat» of the album clings to the ribs of
the longer tracks — ʽTangentʼ, ʽTouch Me With Your Loveʼ, ʽGalaxy Of
Emptinessʼ, stretched out grooves with dark bass lines whose melodies are just
as influenced by country-pop as anything else on here, but whose atmospherics
sort of offers an «easier» alternative to the disturbing soundscapes of
Portishead, replacing «suicidal bleek» with «tolerably melancholic». The bass
melodies at least fulfill the function of solid anchors to root the song to a
channel in your mind, and the electronic embellishments, though nowhere near
as wild as Orbit's, are still more inventive than the acoustic guitar work on
the more traditionally-oriented material.
Other than that, Beth's little penchant for upbeat
pop pays off on ʽLive As You Dreamʼ, which is probably, vocal-wise, the
catchiest number here, and on ʽSomeone's Daughterʼ — the combination of vocal
hooks with friendly funky rhythms works well enough; surprisingly, Beth's «sunny»
side can actually be more impressive than her melancholic side. She also does a
nice cover of the Ronettes' ʽI Wish I Never Saw The Sunshineʼ, backed by just
her acoustic playing, and... well, at least she is not able to spoil an already
good song.
So, all in all, I cannot imagine how it would
be possible to fall in love with Trailer
Park, but it would also be impossible to deny it its own face. The material
is unquestionably diverse, the songwriting is not without its moments, and the
merger of several genres into one is definitely an ongoing thing. As for the
lack of «sharpness» and «spiciness», well, I can also understand how some would
consider it a good thing — the
humbleness, the reluctance to be too gimmicky, the honest refusal of
exaggerating and artifically condensing one's feelings. In any case, one
thing's for certain: there is no «adult contemporary» as such in the vicinity
of Trailer Park, and the fact that
she's avoided that pitfall while circling so dangerously close to the pit alone
is well worth a respectable thumbs up. In short — a good record to savor after
you've exhausted the «flashy» mood masterpieces of the 1990s.
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Check "Trailer Park" (MP3) on Amazon
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