#eliot lee hazel

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TR/ST | Robert Alfons photographed by Eliot Lee Hazel

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Eliot Lee Hazel

British Actress Felicity Jones

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Eliot Lee Hazel

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Eliot Lee Hazel

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Eliot Lee Hazel | Art Cage

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Eliot Lee Hazel

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Bullett Magazine, Spring 2011, (2/2)

📷 Eliot Lee Hazel

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Weather Alive by Beth Orton

Artwork by Eliot Lee Hazel

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Beth Orton Live Preview: 11/10, Mayfair Theatre, Chicago

Photo by Eliot Lee Hazel

BY JORDAN MAINZER

For Beth Orton, Weather Alive (Partisan) is somewhat of a rebirth. Her first album in 6 years, it was written on a described “cheap, crappy” piano set up in her garden shed that she had purchased at Camden Market. Following periods of grief and trauma surrounding the deaths of close collaborators Andrew Weatherall and Hal Willner and incorrectly diagnosed health problems, Orton was able to write songs about simple, yet abstract things that moved her: love, sex, music, and, yes, the weather. She found an all-star band to help realize her compositions, including drummer Tom Skinner, multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, bassist Tom Herbert and saxophonist Alabaster dePlume. Best, Orton self-produced the record, name-checking and somehow nailing a who’s who of influences: Solange, Talk Talk, Springsteen’s Nebraska. The result is easily the best album of her career.

From the get-go, with its stunning title track, Weather Alive introduces its palate, clacking, gentle percussion and piano, muted, but emotive saxophone and bass, and Orton’s raspy, weary drawl. “Almost makes me wanna cry,” she sings, “The weather’s so beautiful outside.” Coming out of an age where realized how much we took for granted the ability to simply be outside, it’s easy to resonate with Orton’s words, awestruck at the natural world. On “Fractals”, explicitly inspired by Willner and Weatherall’s deaths, Orton sings over funky bass, skittering hi hats, and fluttering saxophone. The mathematical nature of the title contrasts how Orton describes creating with cohorts past and present: as “magic.” “Friday Night” is like a microcosm of the beginning of the summer, a symbol for vague hope before a period of time. For Orton, it’s a feeling of being able to potentially see loved ones again. “And though I’ll never get too close,” she sings, “I still hold you now and then.”

At the same time, Weather Alive is sometimes subsumed by dark moments that are no less gorgeous than the hopeful ones. “Lonely” begins with trombone from Aaron Roche, which has a suitably more foreboding quality than dePlume’s saxophone, and goes on to illustrate the depths of Orton’s shame. “Lonely likes my company,” she sings as Skinner’s drums crash. Later, her parents, who passed away when she was a teenager, appear on the song to scold her, telling her to “shut your mouth if someone desires you.” On “Haunted Satellite”, Orton’s voice is persistent, but ultimately shaky and broken. Album closer “Unwritten” unfurls over 7 minutes of sprinkling piano and light drums. “I was getting unwritten,” signs Orton before a droning instrumental outro. It’s an appropriate ending for an album steeped in mortality and sadness but appreciating the dreams along the way.

Tonight, as part of her first US headlining tour in 5 years, Orton performs at the Mayfair Theatre in the Irish American Heritage Center, somehow, someway adapting the “magic” of Weather Alive to the live stage. Expect to hear the full album as well as favorites from favorite records like Trailer Park and Central Reservation. Musician and composer Heather Woods Broderick, who’s playing in Orton’s band, will give an opening set of her material.

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TR/ST | Robert Alfons photographed by Eliot Lee Hazel

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Robert Pattinson photographed by Eliot Lee Hazel, 2012 | inspired by David Cronenberg's movies, Videodrome, Dead Ringers, and Scanners

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Eliot Sumner

Eliot Lee Hazel

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By Eliot Lee Hazel

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Thom Yorke by Eliot Lee Hazel

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