She has been called so many things. In that predictable attempt to put her in some convenient box, Beth Orton has been described as everything from "the clear-eyed oracle of London's breakfast scene" to a "bummed out angel in the badlands of love".
And fair enough. As labels go, they're not far off the mark. Her personal favourite is "the comedown queen" - a reference to her perhaps unlikely place of devotion among the dance crowd. Unlikely because, at first listen, she seems to have more in common with Sandy Denny than with any floppy-hatted beat-mistress of the club scene. But then that's to forget that there are still many young musicians out there with open ears and open minds.
Beth Orton was born in Norfolk in 1970. There was certainly folk music around but not in any deep or serious way. The Ortons were not the Watersons and there were no Billy Pigg records lying around. Nor was there any intense debate as to what was, or wasn't, folk. In fact, most of the music in the house was the punk recordings of the day. While her older brothers indulged their punkish energies, little sister pogoed along too - one ear on the Pistols, the other listening out for what she was later told was a thing called folk. In the meantime it was all just music to her, and like many folk-inclined youngsters in Britain, the punk scene was not quite as you'd think.
"Yeah, I used to go to Exploited gigs. It all seemed more democratic or something. And yes, there is that elitist thing at some folk gigs. And I hate that. I mean, what is folk music supposed to be anyway? Music of the people, isn't it? But I was lucky because my mother worked in a club and, from a very young age, I went along to everything. All sorts of acts passed through, but one night Dougie MacLean played there. My mum's friend fell in love with him and they got married! And that was where I first heard folk music."
The family moved to London when Beth was 14. Having soaked up everything from Nick Drake to The Stone Roses, and working for a bit in Fringe Theatre, Orton was left wondering what to do next. Luckily, she smoked. Luckily, she had no matches. Luckily, the person she asked for a light was a producer. Luckily that producer was William Orbit.
It was an encounter which led to two years of collaboration, with Orbit encouraging her to sing - and to sing in her own voice. Together they made the record SuperPinkyMandy and soon those dance beats began to find their place in Orton's music. That productive early period ended with her appearance on the first Chemical Brothers' album, and people began to take note of the "folkie" who was mixing it up with the groove-meisters.
"I suppose it's a bit odd. But what happened was that when people started giving me Sandy Denny records and Fairport records, I didn't even know who they were. It seemed strange to me to find this music and that I was in some kind of lineage as a folk singer or whatever. It was a very strange thing. It was like there was something already going on that I didn't really know about, and yet I was sort of part of it. I was thinking about that the other night."
Beth Orton thinks about a lot of things late at night. That's when the songs come: deeply personal, stark, heavy, heartbreaking glimpses into after-hours loneliness. And when she is at her absolute happiest. Not for Beth Orton the writer's regime of getting up at 7.30 a.m. and reaching for pencil or mouse.
"More like getting up at one in the morning! I just have to. Sometimes my body actually shakes and I just have to get up and play my guitar. That's great when it happens but sometimes, when its not coming, I don't know what's going on. Something's wrong. Then I just have to have faith. Sometimes pressure is good. Sometimes pressure can get it out of you. But often it's just not the right time. That's the time to be living and experiencing stuff that will later come out in a song."
The first album of songs, Trailer Park, brought Orton immediate critical success. The Best Bit ep took her higher into the charts. The third, Central Reservation, brought her together once more with her hero, Terry Callier, and also called on the services of Dr John on piano. Again, it was a strange musical mix which might only have come from someone born in 1970 who finds it entirely natural to look in several directions at once. Hers is clearly a music which might well go anywhere she chooses.
"Sometimes I have a particular visions. Sometimes they fall away but always they will have taken me somewhere else. I thought about it last night and it's almost like putting your hand in the fire and seeing whether you get burned or not. That's how I've learned things. To put it on the line, really. To put it out there and experiment. To see how it feels, how it sits with me, can I live with it? If I can't, then in some way I'm not being true to myself. "Luckily, a lot of the time I end up realising, well, how can it not be true if it's an honest expression of something that I just wanted to try."
Seeing Beth Orton in a gold sequinned suit and a cowboy hat, you might not be entirely ready for that very English voice. Hearing the beats and grooves, you might be surprised by the obvious roots, conscious and unconscious, of her music. But Orton's instant appeal is that she is both within and without several traditions all at once. And if folk music is something which can tell us what people felt at a particular time, then Beth Orton is very definitely part of a long and valuable tradition of singers, one which includes some serious names indeed. All those contemporary loops just make it all the more rewarding.
"I did a gig recently in New York with Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Martha Wainwright and all these amazing people, and I was really proud to do what I do. I was just so filled with joy. It was such a pure feeling of joy. Just the voice, the guitar and a really beautiful song - and the power of that is immense. And if I'm part of that, it's a lovely thing to be part of."
Beth Orton plays the Olympia Theatre Dublin on March 31st and the Kilkenny Rhythm and Roots Weekend on April 30th.