For more than 30 years, Beth Orton has been our antenna to the cosmos, the poet laureate of forces too vast to take in all at once. Her records arrive patiently, unified by emotional focus rather than any single musical style. From the pioneering folktronica of 1996’s *Trailer Park* to the earthy classic-rock miniatures of 2006’s *Comfort of Strangers* through 2022’s self-produced *Weather Alive*, she has built a catalogue that exists proudly out of time, each album its own planet in an ever-expanding solar system. If *Weather Alive* lived underwater, spectral and dreamlike, *The Ground Above* marks a resurfacing. It is her most direct and unapologetic music to date; profoundly urgent, embodied, and powered by a hard-won strength. Where the previous record unfolded in a suspended dreamscape, *The Ground Above* finds Orton firmly back on land, taking a giant intake of air. It documents survival, integration and renewal without denial, acceptance without resignation. “All the songs on the record are looking through the prism of the years from many directions at once,” Orton says. “If writing songs is therapy, it’s hallucinogenic therapy. It’s working with the unconscious, it’s lucid dreaming.” The album represents independence and authorship, while being deeply collaborative at its core. Working with trusted musicians including multi-instrumentalists Shahzad Ismaily and Vernon Spring’s Sam Beste, drummers Tom Skinner (Sons of Kemet, The Smile) and Chris Vatalaro, and bassist Tom Herbert, Orton reaches new heights as a producer, songwriter, singer, and bandleader. Split into two distinct halves, *The Ground Above* offers a life-affirming reckoning with grief and love as parallel certainties. “What kept me alive, and sometimes nearly killed me, through most of my childhood and all the way through my early 30’s was a kind of feral invincibility, barrelling through. I said yes to life, over and over again, embraced and devoured all that I could, propelled magnetically in a flying dream that didn’t allow for time to catch up with me, except for when it did of course.” Orton says of the title track: “Love and grief are intrinsically linked. Eventually both come to stop you in your tracks, we are all vulnerable beings living out an invincible existence.” The opening tracks arrive as direct transmissions from the subconscious – raw, searching, volatile – while the latter half settles into some of Orton’s most timeless melodies, evoking Great American Songbook forms refracted through spiritual jazz and improvisation. Each song unfolds as a suite of moments, rooted in lived experience rather than nostalgia. Each of the songs carries core memories. On “Before I Knew,” Orton reflects on agency, asking how much choice any of us truly have. “So much of a life is shaped by choices made out of necessity, by survival.” The song was recorded largely live, its gentle landing belying its weight. On “Cigarette Curls,” Orton draws from a formative early friendship. “She had bleached blonde curls, and smoked and spoke French. She introduced me to Françoise Hardy and The Slits. We danced ecstatically to Blondie, singing along at the top of our voices for hours. She was the best fun I’d met in human form.” For the song’s close, Beth helped sculpt a live hip-hop beat with her collaborators, layered with Nick Hakim’s wordless harmonies, capturing both reckless abandon and sudden rupture.