Beth Orton is not an easy artist to categorize. She is known for a unique sound, dubbed ‘folktronica’, which mixes elements of folk and electronica. Sometimes one vibe is more apparent on an album than another. Orton’s last album, Sugaring Season, was firmly in the acoustic-folk genre. However, he new offering Kidsticks revives the 1990s electronica sound.
Orton appeared to the music listening public through electric dance beats, working with William Orbit, Red Snapper and the Chemical Brothers. Later she released an album called Trailer Park (1996), which successfully mixed folk, electronica, and trip hop elements. A series of varied albums followed, of which 2002’s Daybreaker was her most successfully, hitting the U.K. top 10 and U.S. top 40.
Kidsticks is an adventurous album. With the title, Orton told The Guardian that is was chosen “because for me it has that joyous feel of kids playing music with sticks.”
The album could not be more different from Orton’s previous offering (with its folk introspection and spared down sound); Kidsticks sounds joyous, full of sonic twists and airy vocals. The opening song, Snow, sets the mood of the album. It’s happy and fast, with electric guitars crashing over a trashcan drums. It also has an impressively varied vocal from Orton, shifting between gentle cooing and frantic yelping. The next song, Moon, has some ‘tappable’ dance beats together with a hypnotic warbling keyboard. The video of Moon, with its killer bassline, is shown below:
Another stand-out track is Petals, where a there is a terrific bass throb across the song, and it wouldn’t be out of place on a Massive Attack album. On another offering – Flesh and Blood – synthesizers are used to good effect. The most ‘poppy’ number is 1973, which captures the feel of the 1970s in a modern way. The song is also a little trippy, with Orton singing about swimming through a liquid sky.
Serious subjects are also addressed. On the song Falling, Orton deals with growing older. Part of the lyric runs:
Now my phone book,
Is filling up with dead friends,
And I wonder,
Who would answer if I called them.
Another enjoyable track is Dawnstar, which is slightly spaced out nod to romance. One line: “our love is gaining speed”, is repeated over and over above a reverberating beat.
There has been one controversy with the album. Orton was criticized over the music video made for the song 1973. In the video, Orton was shown spray painting a Joshua Tree. The tree is federally protected, and the release of the video led to complaints from the local community. For example, Team Love Records (@teamloverecords) tweeted: “this BO video is fucked up, reminds me of when those dudes trashed Recapture Canyon with their ATVs.”
In response, Orton withdrew the video and, according to Billboard, issued an apology.
Despite this, Kidsticks remains a great return to form. Digital Journal rating: 5 out of 5.
The album has also proved popular across social media. On Twitter, music journalist José David Cano (@Pepedavid13) declared “Another great album by the awesome Beth Orton. It’s called Kidsticks.” This was matched by music lover JBeeTTee (@JBeeTTee) who tweeted: “I think the new album Kidsticks is the best record yet and a career high! Thank you @beth_orton.”
