Beth Orton’s Jim O’Rourke-produced Comfort of Strangers has been a go-to reference for perfect mixes around here since 2006, not to mention hearing the songs on all of her records since the mid-’90s consistently rewards a patient listener. Orton takes her time with this material, too, and her latest set is no different: Sugaring Season arrives in October after a 6-year gap, in which she had a baby and, in her words, “reassess[ed]” the impetus behind her work. Today brings the first single — a moving slow dance called “Something More Beautiful” — and the following, near-poetic, announcement comment:
I stretched myself as a singer on this record and used voices I never have before as a writer. A lot of the writing on this record happened in the dead of night, when spiders mend their webs, with an infant asleep in the next room… as a result, my writing became a secret again: illicit and my own.
Can’t wait to hear more — a video clip for “Something More Beautiful” is streaming above.