Jim O'Rourke Produces New Beth Orton Album

It's been over three years since we last heard an LP's worth of new material from melancholy British folk-tronic chanteuse Beth Orton, but apparently she's been busy shaking things up. On February 7, 2006, Astralwerks will release Comfort of Strangers, Orton's fourth album. And get this: Jim O'Rourke produced it. Yes, that Jim O'Rourke.

O'Rourke played bass, piano, and marimba on the album, and percussionist Tim Barnes, who has worked with Wilco, Silver Jews, Neil Hagerty, and O'Rourke in the past, played drums. M. Ward-- he of Merge Records, Conor Oberst friendship, and overseeing the John Fahey tribute album...co-wrote the title track. Sounds like Ms. Orton's made the leap from electronica to indie, big time.

We'd love to quell your excitement and/or indignation at such an announcement, but we'll have to wait until we actually here the thing to do so. Until then, it's all fair game, except maybe Yankee Hotel Foxtrot comparisons and similar expectations of noisy experimentation. That's just fantasy, and you know it. Here's the tracklist...no, we don't think track five is a Sonic Youth cover:

01 Worms
02 Conceived
03 Comfort of Strangers
04 Heartland Truckstop
05 Shadow of a Doubt
06 Safe in Your Arms
07 Countenance
08 Rectify
09 Feral Children
10 Shopping Trolley
11 A Place Aside
12 Absinthe
13 Heart of Soul
14 Pieces of Sky

* Beth Orton:

Posted by Zach Vowell on Mon, Nov 7, 2005 at 1:00am