The Portishead singer’s first solo LP, 10 years in the making, is an exquisite release of genre-spanning folk, sometimes with eastern inflections, her haunting voice touching on mutability, motherhood, menopause, bereavement, health and heartbreak. From the slow rolling, swooning guitar and orchestral strings of Tell Me Who You Are Today to the advance single and former Song of the Day Floating On A Moment, you know this is going to something special, and so it is. Beth previously worked with Rustin’ Man on the 2002 album Out of Season, but this release has a broader spectrum of styles. Floating’s gently ‘oohing’ chorus has some echoes of David Bowie’s chillingly beautiful final album, with lyrics that ponder how much time we have (“all we have is here and now”), moving into a delicate finale of flutes childrens’ voices singing “All going to nowhere”. Rewind also contains a parallel phrase, “We all know what’s coming,” and ends with children playing in the water. The gorgeously melancholy Burden of Life has fabulous rumbling rhythms and violin, as does For Sale, in which Raven Bush’s violin plays with an eastern flavour, and percussion, by Lee Harris of Talk Talk, uses a unique, makeshift kit of boxes of curtains, wooden drawers, a paella dish, a metal sheet, bits of the mixing desk and a cowhide water bottle to capture a talking, delicate feel of collapse. James Ford’s production adds final panache. This is transcendentally beautiful work, capturing our mutability in so many ways. Every track is a gorgeous, all fragile gems with strength of sound and melody, from Lost Changes, to Reaching Out to Beyond The Sun, the final Whispering Love. A truly outstanding, deeply moving and timeless release. Out on Domino Records.
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