The gestation of the seventh Beth Orton album was troubled to say the least. During the process she was struggling with “complex partial seizures” – terrifying neurological issues, first misdiagnosed as panic attacks, that may have been related to her decades of living with the digestive condition Crohn’s disease. She had to move her family from LA back to London because of the cost of American healthcare.
After finally bringing that under control with anti-epileptic medication, she played early versions of her new material to her record label, who dropped her with a phone call. She needed to take out a loan to afford to finish the album, acting as her own producer for the first time and recording in her garden shed on a soot-filled piano she picked up in Camden Market.
