Beth Orton today announces her album The Ground Above out June 26th Partisan Records. She also shares new single Waiting,” a slow building, life affirming track with subtle influences of Laura Nyro, Carol King and Orton’s early collaborator Terry Callier.
Orton says the song is a celebration of moving out of the holding pattern fear keeps s in. Across The Ground Above she continues to expand her song writing into new terrain, with “Waiting” she does so with humour as much as heartbreak.
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As with 2022’s critical breakthrough Weather Alive Orton self-produced the album, staying true to the collective spirit of the initial live recordings whilst sculpting and expanding, over a year long process, the record we hear today. Working with trusted musicians including multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, Vernon Spring’s Sam Beste, drummers Chris Vatalaro (Antibalas, Radiohead), Vishal Nayak (Nick Hakim), Paul Butler (The Bees and Michael Kiwanuka), Trumpet player Christos Styliande, bassist Tom Herbert and Dave Okumu, Orton steps further into the role of producer and bandleader. The performances across the self-produced album are deeply responsive and instinct-led, often emerging from live interplay in the oom rather than constructed distance. This approach gives the record a tangible physicality, as though the songs are being discovered in the moment they unfold.
The Ground Above is structured in two halves, with the first moving through more fragmented, searching terrain, and the second opening into warmer, more expansive melodic forms. Early songs such as “Before Knew” explore questions of agency and survival, reflecting on how much of life is shaped by choice necessity. “Cigarette Curls” featuring Nick Hakim draws on formative memory and friendship, capturing moments of cultural awakening and emotional intensity refracted through a present-day sonic lens. Later pieces such as “Celestial Light” and “I’ll Miss You” move toward acceptance and fragility, tracing the edges of loss, solitude and emotional endurance.
The title track released last month received love from the Guardian, New York Times, Pitchfork, Stereogum (“an honest to God Epic”) and more. Revisit it
hereAlongside the album announcement, Orton has confirmed a 2026 UK and US headline tour marking her return to the stage following her last in support of Weather Alive The upcoming dates will see her perform eight shows across the UK, starting in Brighton on 12 October and culminating in a show at London’s Alexandra Palace Theatre on 22 October.
For than three decades, Beth Orton has remained of the most distinctive voices n contemporary music. Since her 1996 debut Trailer Park she has built a catalogue marked by emotional clarity and constant evolution, from Comfort of Strangers to the spectral, self-produced Weather Alive Released in 2022, Weather Alive became a major critical breakthrough, signaling not just a return but a reinvention. Her first self-produced album and debut for Partisan Records, it earned widespread acclaim, with The New York Times praising its “modal vocal phrases and marveling” storytelling, Pitchfork awarding Best New Music (8.7), and MOJO highlighting its richness and extraordinary writing.
With The Ground Above, Orton returns with renewed urgency and conviction.
13 Oct 2026 — Manchester Stoller Hall
