On a happier note ...

Miserablist of the 1990s Beth Orton is calmer now and her music is better, says Ed Power

FOR those who wondered what became of ’90s acoustic queen, Beth Orton, the singer has a straightforward answer. “I’ve not made an album for several years. But I certainly haven’t had a ‘hiatus’,” she says. “I’ve been doing my writing. I did a record with [cult folkie] Bert Jansch. It’s been pretty productive. I’ve also had a couple of kids. You know, that sort of thing.”

At 41, Orton is making peace with her demons. Her new LP, Sugaring Season, is contemplative and mature — the work of an artist who, after a life of turmoil, has achieved inner calm. It’s a radical change from the songs she wrote in her 20s and 30s, when she seemed skittish, unsure of what she wanted out of life or music. She is older and wiser and much the better for it.

“Having a child was a life-altering experience for me. After spending 11 years on a tour bus, suddenly I was at home with a tiny baby,” she says. “That was a big deal. I reconsidered a lot of stuff. I went back to Norfolk, where I am from, and lived in a big barn one summer.”

It is seven years since Orton’s previous record, the dark and troubled Comfort of Strangers. She has been described as ‘missing in action’.

A rumour circulated that she had quit the industry in favour of a quiet life in the sticks. This was nonsense. She was out of the spotlight, but, alongside looking after her young son and daughter, she was working hard. She could no more give up music than she could give up breathing. Even if nobody cared, she would have kept writing.

“It doesn’t feel like I’ve been away,” she says. “I have toured and, obviously, am continuing to work on songs. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always been very much present.”

A steadying influence is her husband, the folk artist Sam Amidon. He was by her side in Portland, Oregon, in 2011 when she recorded her new LP at the studio of Americana producer, Tucker Martine.

In a tiny facility in the Portland suburbs, she laid down one of the strongest collections of her career.

“I do seem to work quite well in America,” she says. “I like making a record between two places. I enjoy the perspective it brings. With this album, in particular, being able to move between two points of view was invaluable. You can return to songs with a fresh perspective.”

Orton is wary discussing her past. She has been through the ringer in her career.

In the late ’90s, clubbers latched onto her woozy, melancholic sound. Christened the ‘comedown queen’ — a designation she loathed — her music was sold as the ideal antidote following a night of heavy partying. With her wistful, 4am vibes and doleful lyrics, she perfectly captured the depressive aftermath of an evening of full-on excess.

That she was battling Crohn’s Disease, a potentially life-threatening condition, merely added to her allure. She didn’t just sing about the comedown. She was living it.

Pale and waifish, with a rich, brittle voice, Orton was the perfect poster-child for an era of unchecked club-land hedonism. She became the Britpop era’s in-house miserablist.

Orton doesn’t regret the ’90s. She had a fantastic time, partying with friends such as St Etienne and The Chemical Brothers (she sang on several of the latter’s best songs). Nonetheless, life on the edge took its toll.

Orton eventually grew disillusioned. “If you are living in the moment all the time, you can end up living a full-on lifestyle,” she says. “I’ve never been very easy on myself.”

She was also suffering career frustrations. Orton’s first two albums received Mercury Music Prize nominations and were well-reviewed. But, at the height of Britpop, her sales were healthy rather than stellar.

This caused a great deal of consternation, both for Orton and her record label. A falling-out was probably inevitable. Matters came to a head after her third LP, Daybreaker. She had a disagreement with the management team that had been with her from the start. Bitter words were exchanged, things were said that could not be unsaid.

She struck out on her own and, initially, found it difficult to cope.

Adding to her difficulties, she was an unmarried mother with a baby. The next few years were the hardest of her career, if not her life. Then she met Amidon, and curbed her partying. Clear-headed and possessed of a new-found optimism, she realised that, actually, the world wasn’t such an awful place if you gave it a chance.

Now living in the English countryside, she is learning to enjoy life in the slow lane. For the new record, she wrote songs for their own sake. There were no horrors to exorcise, no hangovers to be fought. It was just Orton, her guitar and a sense that, finally, all was well with creation.

“Having a kid constantly takes you out of yourself, ” she says. “Your train of thought is interrupted. So I kept going back to the songs afresh. I was like ‘now, where was I?’ I quite liked that.”

*Beth Orton plays Olympia, Dublin, Mar 20, Roisin Dubh, Galway, Mar 21, Triskel Christchurch Cork, Mar 24