Beth Orton – Central Reservations (1999)

For a few years I always seemed to bump into Beth Orton's music in various places. Her new albums were mentioned in albums of the year lists by record shops, Spotify was recommending me some of her songs and this very album was in my book 1001 albums to hear before you die. But it took me a while to actually start listening to her music. When I did, I checked her albums in play.com and they were all ridiculously cheap, so I bought many of them at the same time, including this one. Central Reservations is my favourite of Beth Orton's early albums. It has some acoustic folk songs and some more electronic pop songs, but the compositions are very good throughout. Although I feel like Beth Orton isn't that well known, she was nominated for the Mercury Prize with this album and she actually won best British female artist BRIT Music Award.



It takes a bit of time to really get under the skin of Beth Orton's albums. On the first listen they sound good, but at least for me it took longer time to get a proper connection with the songs. When you know a bit about Orton's background, her music opens up a bit more. She was born in Norwich but moved to Dalston in London at 14 years old. Her parents separated when she was young and his father died shortly afterwards. Also, her mother died when she was just 19 years old. After this, she spent a short period in Thailand residing with some Buddhist nuns. Returning to London she worked as a waitress. All of this points to a difficult teenage years, but he handles those topics in her songs quite brilliantly.

The album starts with an intro that has some buzzing electric guitars that wake the song Stolen Car up like a morning sun. There are some similarities to The Cranberries in the sounds, although that may just be the fact that there's still quite a strong 90's sound in the song. Sweetest Decline has this bluesy or jazzy undertone and I think I'm not too far off comparing it to Norah Jones. Couldn't Cause Me Harm is even more 90's sounding than the rest of the album. The drum beats just seam to reveal very clearly when this album was released. So Much More has a hypnotic feel to it that has become more common in Beth Orton's later albums. It's a great song for lazy unhurried moments. Pass in Time was written about Orton's mother's death. There's a nice jazzy sound in the lazily rolling song that despite has that difficult subject. Stars All Seem to Weep breaks the style of the album slightly by sounding much like trip-hop of the late 90's. Love Like Laughter on the other hand is a country ballad with nice easygoing mood. Blood Red River is probably the most melancholic song on the album and naturally it's also one of my favourites. This song is some proper folk music. Devil Song continues this style, but it's even slower and somehow hauntingly beautiful. I feel like the album should really end in this song, since the two songs that come after it don't extend to this kind of greatness.

I don't remember seeing Beth Orton music videos before, so it was quite exciting to see what's there. The video for Stolen Car starts with Orton sitting on a sofa where three assistants appear around her with microphones the assistants follow Orton around when she walks around the room and looks at the camera. doing fast twists etc. It's not necessarily that interesting video in terms of a storyline, but it's still nicely nostalgic being so 90's.

I think it's funny how I used to think I was very well aware of the music of the 90's and early 00's, especially in the genres I liked, but more recently I've realised that you can never be aware of everything and no matter how much you do your research, there will still always be bands and artists, even quite acknowledged ones that you only hear years later. I'm glad I got to know Beth Orton's music, because I really like it.

Listen to the album on Spotify.