Kidsticks

Writing a song often starts within the confines of some kind of genre, but it’s an art within an art to make something that doesn’t fall into anything solidly defined. U.K. artist Beth Orton’s been blurring those lines for decades. Her signature blend of “folktronica” has married a solemn, folk feeling with pulsing, metallic beats and accents, coming together tastefully and genuinely. For her newest, Kidsticks, Orton continues to bend and realign genre borders, moving away from the more simple-folk realm she’s hovered in for the last several years into more electronica-heavy territory. Though songs like “Flesh and Blood” or “Corduroy Legs” are built on the chugging cogs of beats upon beats, there’s still something very organic and human that permeates. That something might be the solid ground of Orton’s alto chops lilting through rhymes, possessing a melodic levelheadedness. Folk, electronica or something in between—it’s an art, and a good one.