Beth Orton announces Leeds date following news of new album The Ground Above

Beth Orton has announced her new album The Ground Above, set for release on June 26th via Partisan Records, as well as a new tour which sees her visit Leeds.

To celebrate the announcement, she has shared the new single ‘Waiting’, a slow-building, life-affirming track with subtle influences of Laura Nyro, Carole King, and Orton’s early collaborator Terry Callier. Orton describes the song as a celebration of moving out of the holding pattern that fear keeps us in, expanding her songwriting into new terrain with both humour and heartbreak.

A testament to her artistry, The Ground Above is Orton’s most direct and unapologetic music to date; urgent, raw, and emotionally fearless. Her voice delivers melodies reminiscent of classic songbook form as she documents survival and renewal, motherhood and identity, and the ongoing choice to stay in love and in art. As with 2022’s critical breakthrough Weather Alive, Orton self-produced the album, sculpting the record over a year-long process alongside trusted musicians including multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, Sam Beste, and drummers Chris Vatalaro and Vishal Nayak.

“Acceptance and fragility”

The album is structured in two halves, with the first moving through more fragmented, searching terrain, while the second opens into warmer, more expansive melodic forms. Early songs such as ‘Before I Knew’ explore questions of agency and survival, while ‘Cigarette Curls’, featuring Nick Hakim, draws on formative memory and friendship. Later pieces such as ‘Celestial Light’ and ‘I’ll Miss You’ move toward acceptance and fragility, tracing the edges of loss and emotional endurance. The title track, released last month, has already received widespread praise from critics as an honest-to-god epic.

For more than three decades, Beth Orton has remained one of the most distinctive voices in 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 Weather Alive.

Alongside the album announcement, Orton has confirmed a 2026 headline tour marking her return to the stage, which includes a highly anticipated Yorkshire performance on Friday, 16 October 2026 at Howard Assembly Room, Leeds.

Tickets are on sale here
Image: Kasia Wozniak