Beth Orton - Central Reservation
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Free Music Notes for Central Reservation
Free Music Review: interesting ...
Hit: 4 Stars
The music is pure, realistic, and interesting. I'd suggest her new album aswell.Free Music Review: fantasic and brilliant
Hit: 5 Stars
one of the best albums of the last several years - a haunting, evocative collection of sublime melodies and poetic subterfuge. Amazing and inspiring, soul stirring. Beth Orton's voice, her lyrical phrasings, and her beautiful melodies achieve transcendence where others merely hover... This is a truly great piece of work.Free Music Review: Beth Orton is the Best
Hit: 5 Stars
People who don't enjoy soft, simple and subtle music probably won't like Beth Orton. My wife said "it doesn't sound like anything". For me, Beth Orton's music is as beautiful as anything I have ever heard. It is simple, quiet, but extremely melodic and absolutely gorgeous. This is a great CD by a spectacularly talented singer-songwriter.Free Music Review: Out of pitch, but in tune
Hit: 4 Stars
It seems that a number of the negative reviews complain that Beth's voice tends to waver off-key, but I think that misses the point of what makes her such an affecting singer. Neil Young once wrote of his performance on "Tired Eyes" that it was "out of pitch, but in tune." That's Beth. I don't mean to affirm the notion that she has no sense of pitch; but when her pitch might waver, she follows an emotional logic that is just right for the feeling in the lyric. Just like jazz & blues musicians might hit "blue notes" that are off-key on the Western Classical scale, but they are the right notes to express a certain feeling in the music.Anyway, I think Beth's voice is absolutely beautiful, the kind of sound that cuts right past all the walls and filters and reaches directly into the raw emotional nerves that you try to bury inside. For me, at least, listening to her is a much more intense, personal experience than listening to most other singers. If you're new to Beth Orton, you might start with TRAILER PARK, which is one of the very best albums of the last 10 years; but this one's still better than most of what's out there.
My only problem with this record is the sequencing. The first three tracks are terrific, but the pacing really bogs down with "So Much More" and "Pass in Time," and the album often fails to hold my attention again until Track 8 ("Love Like Laughter") although Tracks 6 & 7 are good songs in their own right. I find that I enjoy the album more if I skip Tracks 4-5, or program the songs in a different order.
Free Music Review: Haunting, revealing, compelling
Hit: 4 Stars
I bought this CD having heard "Stars All Seem To Weep" on the "Back to Mine" release from Everything But The Girl. Ben Watt, an accomplished jazz guitarist, arranged and produced that track for Beth, hence its inclusion on the "Back to Mine" compilation.I was entranced, to say the least. And knew I had to have "Central Reservation".
There's something about Orton's writing that is very compelling: visual, honest, visceral. The oft-quoted lyric from the title track "And I can still smell you on my fingers/and taste you on my breath" is gripping, graphic. But the soft understatement of "Sweetest Decline" ("She weaves secrets in her hair/her wispers are not hers to share/she's deep as a well") left me reeling. The swell of orchestration is an unexpected - and perfect - counterpoint to the bare bones structure of the tune. It's no exaggeration to say I was left with my head spinning.
There is much about the album that renders it a very personal experience for the listener, as much as it is obviously personal for Orton. No manufactured "Bye Bye Bye" schmaltz here. One gets a true sense of the songwriter here, which is very rare with today's typical overproduction.
This is one of those albums I keep for myself, for late nights, long drives, headphones. You may very well feel the same after connecting with "Central Reservation".