‘Fullness of Wind’: The Brian Eno song ingrained in Beth Orton’s core memory
Emerging in an age where music had discovered most of its viable hybridisations, Beth Orton combined her eclectic passions into a nuanced product in the late 1990s. Earlier in the decade, Ultramarine was credited as the progenitor of ‘Folktronica’, but Orton’s distinctive innovations helped to popularise the subgenre heading towards the 21st century in fruitful collaborations with producers like William Orbit and Andrew Weatherall.
Taking cues from legendary singer-songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Tim Buckley, Bert Jansch and John Martyn, Orton discovered the cathartic powers of the acoustic guitar. After sidelining earlier aspirations in acting, she earnestly pursued a lifelong passion for songwriting. Her poetic lyrics and passionate delivery are apt for excellence, but an embrace of electronica held the key to individuality and enduring appeal.
While piecing together a music career through the early 1990s, Orton was beguiled by the contemporary rave scene and ultimately collaborated with some of its leading proponents, including The Chemical Brothers. However, the ‘King of Ambient’, Brian Eno, stirred her interest in synthetic soundscapes many years before.
Speaking to Pitchfork in 2022, Orton picked out Eno’s Discreet Music as one of her favourite albums. She remembered the track ‘Fullness of Wind’ with particular poignance due to its association with a core memory. “My mom was listening to this on full blast on her own in the dark, without my dad in the house,” Orton remembered. “She was sitting by the record player and clearly in the throes of some emotional sadness.”
At the time, Orton was just five years old. Unbeknownst to her, her parents were going through a rough patch. They separated several years later when Orton was 11. “She didn’t hear me come in,” Orton continued. “I sat just out of her eyesight. I watched her, and then eventually, I laid back and listened to the music. You don’t feel you can enter other people’s emotional worlds as a kid, but in that moment, I was in her world.”
Tragically, Orton’s father died shortly after the breakup, and by age 19, Orton was left parentless when her mother sadly passed away following a battle with cancer.
Orton has clearly gained strength from adversity and found a release in music, much like her mother. “My dad was very strict – ‘Keep the noise down!’ Children were to be seen and not heard, Orton added, revealing her father’s short temper. “And here was my mom breaking those rules, kind of. I didn’t know that she was in this loveless marriage. I didn’t know that she was about to leave him. I just thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. It’s one of my first memories, witnessing my mom’s involvement in something outside of who I knew her to be.”
‘Fullness of Wind’, arriving in 1975, is an epic ten-minute orchestral composition based on Johann Pachelbel’s classical piece ‘Canon In D Major’. With placated strings, Eno’s variation is ethereal and morose, a cathartic soundscape prescient of his transformative ambient works to come. Discreet Music is often eclipsed by Eno’s masterpiece of the same year, Another Green World, but deserves no less attention.
Listen to Brian Eno’s ‘Fullness of Wind’ below.
