A friend of mine once described Beth Orton as the folkie electronica goddess, and a couple of years ago that wouldn’t been an apt description. When she first arrived on the scene with Trailer Park in the late 90s, audiences knew her as one of the sirens backing up William Orbit and the Chemical Brothers on various tracks. And while Trailer Park was no big-beat extravaganza, there were enough subtle electronic effects to make Orton stand out from the pack of female singer-songwriters. Turns out she was just slightly ahead of her time; sticking to much the same formula but gradually becoming more ambitious with the arrangements, Orton found herself competing against more and more artists for the same kind of sound. By 2002’s Daybreaker we’d seen and heard it all before, and without any fresh, compelling material to feed off of, it seemed like Orton had come to a crossroads.

Comfort of Strangers, then, would appear to be a sharp left turn; eschewing the electronica-lite backing tracks and the extravagant string sections of old, Orton has pared down to much simpler arrangements, and if she once straddled the line between guitar-based folk and beat-based electronica, she’s definitely chosen a side this time. So immediately you can start figuring out where you’ll stand on her latest album: if your favourite Beth Orton song is something like “Pass In Time,” the delicate ballad she sang with Terry Callier on Central Reservation, chances are you’ll want to give the album a try. If your favourite Beth Orton song is more like “Stars All Seem To Weep,” a dark electronic number arranged and produced by Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl fame, then you probably won’t find as much to like here.

The album comes out next week, and so in-depth apprisals will have to wait. The mere fact that Ryan Adams is nowhere to be found in the credits, however, is enough to give hope to those who found Daybreaker a disappointment.