Despite a crushing migraine attack and the thud-thud sound of someone plumbing in a dishwasher in the kitchen area of her flat, Beth Orton seems to be in fine fettle. Finally talking to The Irish Times following postponement after postponement (a combination, she says, of lack of organisation and a chronic condition called Chrohn's Disease, the cause and cure of which is not yet known; "sometimes I don't feel so good, but it's nothing I want to get labelled with either . . ."), Orton is currently back on the road. She visits Belfast in early November, playing two dates as part of the Belfast Festival at Queen's. She's been here before, of course, playing gigs as wide apart as Donegal and Baltimore, and she says she feels a natural empathy with the country.
"John, my sound man, is Irish, and Ted, my guitarist, loves Ireland. We've always talked about coming over to do gigs that are not tied in with any promotional tours. When I was growing up I listened to a lot of Irish music, but I moved away from it. The last time I was in Ireland, when we went from one end of the country to the other, it was quite emotional, really. I remembered a lot of things from my past. I used to go to a lot of ceilis, and listen to the musicians play. My mum worked in an arts centre and there used to be quite a lot of exposure to that kind of music. The music I do now still comes from the same place. It's not that I want to play Irish music or anything, it's just something I've revisited. I don't think it's a coincidence that I keep getting drawn to it, either."
Orton retains a curious relationship with current music trends. While her debut album, Trailer Park (so called because the original title, Winnebago, was jettisoned following legal action from the camper van manufacturers) sold over 300,000 copies worldwide, it nevertheless caused rumblings at the tribal gatherings: was it folk or was it techno? Or was it simply strum'n'bass? Whatever it was dubbed, Orton was quickly, aptly titled "the Comedown Queen".
Her early heroes might have been the likes of Neil Young, Rickie Lee Jones and Joni Mitchell, but her post-teenage years were taken up with drama school and two years of fringe theatre. This was sidelined when she began dabbling in music. She subsequently recorded demos with Primal Scream, added vocals to William Orbit's Strange Cargo projects, and guested with Red Snapper and Chemical Brothers. Her follow-up album, Central Reservation, carried over the slightly dishevelled charm of the first and set her on a path to even more success.
There's an interesting point about Orton's success, however. While quite a number of bangin', techno-thump outfits look on emotional topics in the same way a largin'-it youth might look upon a member of the Garda Siochana - with suspicion and not a little disdain, perhaps - Orton writes songs that capture a firm sense of loss. Her father died when she was 11, her mother succumbed to cancer several years ago. She has openly acknowledged that the onset of her illness seems to be connected with emotional ebbs and flows, and it's no surprise to discover that on the completion of each of her albums she has had to go into hospital to recuperate. Nowt so queer as folk artists?
"It's interesting and weird isn't it?," she responds. "I'm not sure whether I'm perceived as a folk artist, though. In some ways, I've allowed it to happen because every time someone says that to me, I more or less agree with them, just for the sake of argument. I have explored the folk element as far as I can, I think, yet every time I explore it acoustically I get a thrill from it that equals the thrill I get when I go out and not listen to folk music. I can't help it, really - I just get a thrill from playing folk music live. There's a rawness there that is difficult to be bettered by other types of music. I get a thrill from other music, too, of course. I'm introspective but I'm also extrovert as well. I don't see why it has to be one thing or the other."
There's little doubt but that Orton, through her subtle blending of folk and chill-out techno, has broken down many barriers, yet the diversity of the people who listen to her music still surprises her.
`IT FEELS like a certain person has got into my music at a certain time and it means something to them," she explains. "They're not necessarily always listening to that kind of music. A lot of snobbery is going away now, and there's so much more open-mindedness and less preconceptions. But I was brought up in Norwich, a small town, and you get every type of person in such a small community, don't you? So people with little or no preconceptions have never been much of a shock to me. Norwich gave me an "anything goes" approach and that's, musically speaking, where I come from."
Does she find it difficult to blend into an industry where so many people look askance at her "anything goes" approach? With the current official image of pop music being either identikit girly pop or white-boy rap/nu-metal, how does she feel about keeping her own identity, about getting heard above the rest?
"It's very difficult to get heard, that's a big deal," she says. "It's nothing to do with keeping the level of my skirt below my knees, either - I've never been one for that! There are those ways of selling pop, but let's be honest - I don't think I fit into that particular mould. Curiously, my identity is the least difficult to forge. I don't find it that hard to be who I am. Whether that works in the big marketplace is another thing, yet there seems to be a place for me and the likes of Badly Drawn Boy.
"I place a lot of faith in the human race when I put out a record. I really didn't think Trailer Park would get anywhere. Within the means I've got I think I've done very well. OK, I'm not Britney Spears, but I'm not trying to be. To get the look-in I have got has really surprised me. It also means that people who might not be as hip are getting a look-in as well, people who I call the real original folk artists - people like Kathyrn Williams. I respect her so much. Sometimes I wish I could be as purist as her, but I have to be honest and say that my way in wasn't that purist at all. Sometimes I wish I could have done it her way, but I've done it on my own terms. I'm not just making my records on my own label for £2,000. The people who are, though, are the real deal."
Beth Orton plays at the Elmwood Hall on November 1st and 2nd at 9 p.m.
