SUGARING SEASON

Beth Orton's Anti debut captures the classic hypnotic sound that won her prominence, at the same time as it shows a singer at the full maturity of her instrument, with a new soulfulness that can recall Roberta Flack or Nina Simone one moment, June Christy at the next. Sugaring Season is in many ways a culmination of Orton's art of contradictions, a full circle from that first John Martyn cover she recorded with William Orbit back in the day soulful and ambient, lush and bittersweet, starkly still and fiercely rhythmic.