The Magic Of Musical Connection

A reflection on seventeen years as a fan of Laura Marling

As a longstanding fan of Laura Marling, dating back to her early singles, it was been quite something to experience the deepening of my love for her work over the past few months. I would have always described her as one of my favourite artists, but there has been a notable shift since I encountered her eighth record, ‘Patterns In Repeat’, in mid-July. It has been with me every day since and I am still getting so much from it even now. It feels so precious that there was even a curious burst of sadness at it making it out into the world at the end of October. Seeing it performed almost in its entirety during the Hackney Church residency will stay with me forever. With this emotional attachment still raw and coursing through me, it felt time to reflect upon a musician who means so very much to me.

Our story starts in November 2007 when, as for many people, my first exposure to the music and general presence of Laura Marling came via a performance on Later with Jools Holland. As had become my wont, I was flicking hastily through the previous night’s episode on a Saturday morning so as to find the two songs performed by a particular artist of interest, on this occasion Richard Hawley. I must have been in a charitable mood as, for those acts I didn’t really know, I was allowing each song about thirty seconds to impress itself upon me before I pressed down on the fast forward button again. So utterly beguiling was Marling’s performance of ‘New Romantic’ that by the time the song was finished it was now rewind that my thumb was activating. I completely forgot that I was waiting on a second song by Hawley and went charging off to the computer – ah, those pre-device days - to attempt to find anything and everything that featured this stunning voice. And so begun a near-obsession that is closing in on seventeen years now.

To draw a line from that early outing to her performance at the BBC’s COVID-afflicted 2020 Proms is to witness an artist capable of seemingly limitless growth. In her little space on Jools’ floor she didn’t look up once, but in the near-empty Royal Albert Hall she was in her element. A small, satisfied smile at the end of a genuinely heavenly performance of that year’s ‘For You’ proved to be one of the most memorable moments in a set driven by Rob Moose’s exquisite string arrangements. His work on the new album extends this compelling collaboration that has only ever been fruitful even further. In a set full of striking reinterpretations, that one track alone swaps its absorbing hums for several striking solo violin bursts and the plucked notes at its start are just good for the soul. You’ll find it below – expect to listen to it many, many times. The whole performance is on there and it is a superb alternative history of a musician who has been quietly, outrageously brilliant for so long. Marling is a singular artist, at times contradictory, often enigmatic and always captivating.

There are voices that deliver much more than simply bringing joy, voices which connect to your very soul and prompt reactions that reach far beyond words. Voices with such an unshakeable reverberation that you listen to everything ever released, persevere with anything that doesn’t initially connect, safe in the knowledge it will come good, and to which you turn in times of darkness, knowing that they will restore some order. That is Laura Marling for me. And it’s not just her singing voice. That which she uses for her immensely readable and thoroughly satisfying Substack has somehow convinced me that we’d get on in real life – love of Frasier, the writing Rilke and over-thinking? Yes, please! - and a recent podcast appearance – on Midnight Chats - was enough to lift me out of a deep gloom. She has described her approach to working up ideas and conversation as “the verbal dance of the high-reaching midwit,” and if you don’t automatically love her for that alone, I’m not sure we’ll ever be friends. Have I passed the point of critical faculties? Who knows? But I feel confident in telling you that her latest album is an absolute masterpiece and there has been quite a journey to this point.

I have never seen an artist captivate a small venue in quite the way Marling did in Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms in November 2008. The hushed silence between songs as she languidly meandered through the rigmarole of structured chat with the audience was palpably electric. Everyone was hanging on her every ‘erm’ and as she offered us an early listen to what would, some thirteen months later, be her next single, ‘Goodbye England’, the same reverence being meted out to the songs we all knew was deployed. No chit-chat during the new stuff, no dashing off to the loo. She had us all in the palm of her hand, and I suspect she knew it, evidenced by playful stirring with her band at the set’s conclusion. Some performers just have that indefinable something and Marling has more of that something than most. Touring in support of her strident, melodically rich debut, since perceived by Marling as a “nu-folk” endeavour that sits somewhere outside of her catalogue before she found her artistic focus on the second album, it is still a glorious listen.

Opener ‘Ghosts’ sets the tone for rapid plucked acoustic and windy narratives, while ‘Old Stone’ is an early indicator of just how good she would become when the ominous build reveals itself. ‘Tap At My Window’ is a sparse beauty with a sumptuous string arrangement, perhaps prompting it to be allowed back from purgatory for the aforementioned Proms performance. ‘Failure’ has an ambulatory rhythm, ascending through a soaring swell while ‘You’re No God’ has the skitteringly jovial drumming that was regulation issue in that particular scene. Even so, some sawing violins ensure that things never get too saccharine. ‘Cross Your Fingers’ and ‘Crawled Out Of The Sea’ bring the genial jangle, while ‘My Manic And I’ and ‘Night Terror’ offer some much needed darkness. ‘The Captain And The Hourglass’ has a plinky plonky piano part that it’s simply impossible to imagine Marling going anywhere near now, or even by her second album for that matter. The weary ache of ‘Shine’ and swaying noir of ‘Your Only Doll (Dora)’ make for a highly satisfying conclusion. While it may have little in common with what would follow, it’s still an excellent record and a fascinating early outing like Joni’s ‘Song To A Seagull’ or Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’. And, no, I don’t think invoking such names is out of proportion.

Having asserted the credentials of ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’, a question emerges. How do you follow a debut record of such quality, such depth and such beguiling songwriting that nobody was able to believe you were still in your teens when you made it? With relative ease, it turned out. At the risk of quickly getting repetitive, it’s hard to believe she made this record whilst still in her teens too.

2010’s ‘I Speak Because I Can’ was largely recorded live to tape, Marling and her assembled band rattling through these tunes in one room under the guidance of the esteemed Ethan Johns. It should be noted that there’s considerably less jangle than on the debut and this is a rather more intense affair. Opener ‘Devil’s Spoke’ is an all out folk assault, before the quieter textures of ‘Made By Maid’ and ‘Blackberry Stone’ move into view, the latter a rather more fulsome rendering than the b-side incarnation which previously accompanied ‘Cross Your Fingers’. Between these two sits the first of the album’s true gems, ‘Rambling Man’. A fine example of how to build a song slowly but surely, with no need for epic strings or ludicrous guitar breaks, it is also home to one of Marling’s best vocal performances. She languidly curls her larynx around the opening verse, gathering in intensity as the band come shambling in and yet still holding back until the final renderings of the chorus. This transcendent vocal flourish follows a quite startling breakdown in proceedings in which, with almost eerie conviction, Marling tells us that, “it’s funny how the first chords that you come to are the minor notes that come to serenade you. It’s hard to accept yourself as someone you don’t desire, as someone you don’t want to be.” The song seems to suggest that the character in it, be it autobiographical or otherwise, is happy to not fit in, provided they be accepted for who they truly are. The almost euphoric chorus, reminiscent of ‘Blue’-era Joni, to continue the comparison, belies the rather more complex undercurrent.

‘Alpha Shallows’ appears in a more concise and haunting fashion than an early outing on the ‘Night Terror’ single quite managed, while the 2009 Christmas offering ‘Goodbye England’ is not hindered by such associations, and the refrain about never loving England more "than when covered in snow" is at least as warmly bucolic as it is festive.

‘Hope In The Air’ continues the moody and intense Celtic folk tones first established by album opener, ‘Devil’s Spoke’. ‘What He Wrote’, on the other hand, tells the haunting tale of separated lovers over a sparse acoustic backdrop. ‘The waves came and stole him and took him to her’, sings Marling, and by God she sounds every bit the wronged wife. It is this subtle but quite magnificent vocal dexterity that sets ‘I Speak Because I Can’ apart from ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’, in the same way that that debut was a subtle, but notable, shift on from the sound of her early demos and EPs. Progression is obvious, and that growing confidence with cadence, emphasis and pacing would rapidly accelerate in the years to come.

‘Darkness Descends’, replete with beautiful, double-tracked vocal, has a levity of touch that is welcome after the intensity of ‘What He Wrote’. The galloping drums are back on what is perhaps the most obvious indication of the album having been recorded with the whole troupe playing together in the same place. There’s a gentle, rough-around-the-edges feel to the arrival of some of the backing vocals and the halting of bits of percussion that is utterly, utterly charming. You’ll probably be smiling by this point. Album closer, ‘I Speak Because I Can’ quickly puts paid to that, opening with the line, “my husband left me last night, left me a poor and lonely wife.” The title track builds to a suitably wrought conclusion before simply stopping and bring the album to an atmospheric, anticipatory and downright amazing conclusion.

‘I Speak Because I Can’ was a less immediate record than ‘Alas I Cannot Swim’ but was clearly a sizeable step on from that album’s sound. It was a superb second offering that inveigled its way into my heart. It builds an atmospheric, enveloping terrain that demands repeat plays. And they will make you feel good.

It has become evident over the years, that Laura Marling has a complicated relationship with her own catalogue. Writing on the aforementioned Substack, she reflected on a terrible deal she signed for her first five albums, which, she informs us, “will never return to my possession. If you’ve ever wondered why I don’t spend a lot of time promoting or re-pressing those albums, that’s why - I will never see any financial benefit from doing so. My children will never own or benefit from those albums. Maybe I’ll pull a Taylor Swift someday - but honestly, I don’t like to dwell on it. What’s done is, legally speaking, done - I’m told. Overall, I consider myself lucky that I got any shot at a music career.” Worsened by the growth in streaming, that first contract is one of the stumbling blocks for the Virgin Records era, along with a lingering dissatisfaction with several of the albums made.

One of the most magical aspects of a life lived through music is knowing that what means so much to you may mean nothing to the next person, that your context, personality and emotional core will dictate what resonates and what doesn’t. Even so, I can’t help being a little perturbed by Marling’s mild apathy towards 2011’s ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’. I wasn’t sure what to expect of it at first, following the utterly irresistible debut, blessed with a little naivety and some grand tunes and the majesty ‘I Speak Because I Can’ where Marling seemed to have aged fifteen years while taking far bolder steps and inhabiting characters far from what we’d come to expect from her. At the time of that second album’s release, there had been – it transpired, erroneous - talk of a further album of new material following only months later. However, it was still a relatively swift turnaround to the September 2011 unveiling of ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’. My review copy arrived just as I was knee deep in house hunting for a cross-country relocation. As a consequence, it soundtracked a lot of car journeys and several quiet evenings in unfamiliar locations. It didn’t take long for it to become a comforting friend. As has happened with her music since, there is something unutterably powerful about the connections formed between songs and the versions of ourselves that present in defining times. We may change, changing the songs with us, but they will be forever anchored to us. An attachment formed in a peculiar shared experience of which the artist responsible knows nothing.

Certain aspects of the album prompted some critical dissent, most peculiarly the album’s excellent opening track. The jazzy whirl of ‘The Muse’, sounds, at times, like a more forceful and jagged ‘Poor Boy’ by Nick Drake; it’s a stunning statement of intent and proved the most relaxed start to one of her albums to date. The sense of an artist no longer feeling the need to prove herself runs throughout these ten songs. The fact that it doesn’t sound like anything she had previously done struck me as no bad thing – a trend that has continued for a further thirteen years - and quite why it garnered accusations of smoothing out her sound or even – and this is true - trying to sound like Norah Jones (an excellent musician in her own right, by the way) is baffling. Listen to the thing. Then do it again. It’s not got easy listening pop smash written all over it, has it?

Beginning delicately, ‘I Was Just A Card’ unfurls magically, with Marling shaping and pushing her voice in new directions again. Lyrically, her ability to inhabit a song and deliver a story remains beautifully intact, the line “my mother, she’s the saviour of six-foot of bad behaviour”, in ‘Salinas’, curls magically around the melody. This bluesy number builds to a crescendo which then seems to abate with the quiet start to ‘The Beast’, only for it to explode into one of the most malevolent sounding things Marling has ever released. ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’ really feels like an album, rather than a collection of songs, and an album of two halves at that. That Marling was increasing her vinyl collection at a rate of knots around its creation is perhaps no coincidence. A collection she has recently put into storage, by the way. She’s hoovering up second hand CDs and has bought a decent player, at least partly so her little one can use them too.

There is a real focus on how things sound together, be it the tremendous force at the conclusion of ‘The Beast’ to end side one or the wonderful way in which ‘Don’t Ask Me Why’ changes pace so as to descend smoothly straight into the beginning of ‘Salinas’. The fondness for a suite would, of course, remain. Gorgeous single ‘Sophia’ is elevated to greatness by the introduction of her band at its midpoint, another of those magical moments in songs that I so like banging on about, while ‘Night After Night’, one of the rare solo moments on the album, is a wonderfully balanced, emotionally loaded commentary on love. The album ends on the upbeat sing-song ‘All My Rage’, one of the tracks with which she seemed most satisfied during the cathedral tour that was eventually enshrined in history via a 2CD reissue of the album and a separate special vinyl release via the good folk at Diverse. You’ll find it appended to some versions of ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’ on streaming and it is a bewitching dance through her early years. It’s a long way from those Proms versions I can’t stop mentioning, but it’s a radiant snapshot of an unstoppable ascendancy in full flight.

And then came the leap. At just over an hour, ‘Once I Was An Eagle’ was one to live with, to live in. Speaking to Uncut’s Tom Pinnock in 2020, Marling reflected: “I still think of it as a magical happening. People were trying to say it could have been shorter, and maybe a couple of songs could have been B-sides, but that was the story I wanted to tell. Ethan was into it too, he wanted to do a double record.”

All the talk prior to its arrival was off the four-song suite that opens proceedings, which certainly withstood the amount of expectation put upon it, tipping everyone off that she had moved on again. By far her most complex release up to that point and possibly since, it captures an artist doing exactly what they think serves the songs. Listening to her instincts, Marling arrived at a lengthy record that started to represent the scope of her imagination, the scale of her capacity for songwriting. The sublime but slight instrumental ‘Interlude’, which seems to mark a shift in the record’s momentum, has long been a favourite little moment from ‘Once I Was An Eagle’, perhaps because it represents the unexpected range of this set.

This was no longer somebody finding their sound, something which, arguably, ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’ put to bed. Instead, it is the wielding of a phenomenal talent with masterfully dextrous control of the tiller. Marling’s key facilitator and musical foil, Ethan Johns, played his part once again, as well as a range of instruments where required. While the result may be quite something to behold, the process was brief, understated and organic. The way Marling tears into songs is a delight, building on the bite and ebullience of 2011’s ‘The Muse’ and ‘The Beast’. ‘Master Hunter’, appended to the aforementioned opening suite and very much of a piece, was an obvious highlight, weaving in and out of itself in a fashion not dissimilar to the whole album, which truly has a sense of coming full circle by the time of its conclusion. Listen to the energy in ‘Where Can I Go?’, refining the swagger and organ-driven momentum of the previous record to a precise art. And the unexpected, delicate but hugely affecting gear change barely seventy seconds into ‘Once’ is a treat every pair of ears deserves to witness.

The pace drops in its final third as several, more melancholy characters are explored before rolling to a halt at the feet of album closer ‘Saved These Words’. It seems to simmer and shudder like a kettle on its way to boiling point, the percussion growing in intensity and volume while Marling’s vocal is half-sung half-spoken in a fashion that seems somewhat alien to her, building to the killer lines “thank you naivety for failing me again, he was my next verse”. It seems a fine point to stop and a neat summation of the considerable ground covered across the album’s duration. The close still prompts a sharp intake of breath from me, routinely sending me right back to its start. It’s not my favourite of hers, but it is a wonderfully complete, coherent vision expressed immaculately. Even Marling wondered if she could top it.

To continue my occasional reflections on various gigs, I was lucky enough to be present at an early show for her fifth album ‘Short Movie’ on Bristol’s iconic waterborne venue The Thekla. Crammed in below deck, that night’s audience witnessed something unforgettable. She was in riveting, ferocious form, tearing into songs with an energy that would lead to significant reworkings of many elements of her catalogue by the time of the album’s full tour later that year. But it marked the end of a creative process that had been fraught and frustrating. Talking to Uncut again, she recounts that “Short Movie was a very quickly written batch of songs, because I’d scrapped everything from the album that we threw away. So this was a very concise timespan, just a very short period in my life. I actually don’t really like the album, but I get why I wrote it and why I had to write it. I needed to keep moving or I was going to drown in the sorrow of having failed.”

Not only that, but she has spoken of being bemused at it getting good reviews, despite her feeling it was sub-par. I’ll confess, I was one of those responsible for such praise. And, while it doesn’t fully cohere as a record, it still has many excellent songs. There was a clear tension in the air on ‘Short Movie’ that hadn’t been present since ‘I Speak Because I Can’, when Laura Marling sought to quickly escape the rather jovial indie-folk scene and find a stepping stone to other musical climes. That ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’ and ‘Once I Was An Eagle’ were both such supremely accomplished and often beautiful records, might just have constructed a sense that Marling had found her furrow and would conceivably plough it successfully for many decades hence.

Perhaps such a realisation also dawned on Marling, prompting a transatlantic relocation and several years spent living in Los Angeles remembering how to be young, confused and wide-eyed. 2014 began with the writing of an album inspired by this shift and concluded with a return to London, where these replacement songs were recorded. The itch that sent her out there is present throughout these jittery fifty minutes, most noticeably captured by the preference for an electric guitar over the acoustic.

By her own admission, Marling plays both instruments in largely the same fashion, but there is a fidgety energy in the way she launches into tracks like ‘False Hope’ and ‘Don’t Let Me Bring You Down’ that is confirmation that the ‘more of the same’ predictions were wide of the mark.

Opting to self-produce for financial reasons as much as anything after three records with Ethan Johns at the helm, there is a certain loss of polish but with that comes some risks. Most noteworthy is a decision to record several string parts with almost no direction for the players beyond the key and chord progression, creating a background bustle behind the more conventional renderings which were then placed in the foreground of the mix. Opener ‘Warrior’ slowly emerges out of a reverb-heavy soundscape, the unsettling swirl ever-present throughout. When first single ‘False Hope’ initially does something not dissimilar, it’s tempting to think that the sonic palette for ‘Short Movie’ has been set, but one of the album’s most significant shifts occurs on the minute mark. As Marling sings “a storm hits the city and the lights go out before I can prepare”, the band suddenly take flight, mid-line, and pounding drums accompany a malevolent guitar part as the weather pens the singer in. Before long the tempest has twisted into a claustrophobic concern about the future, only to come to an abrupt halt.

While the rumbling heft of certain songs became a defining characteristic of this album, several of the more subdued moments prove no less stirring. ‘Walk Alone’ finds Marling rebutting a claim that she can’t love, stating that “I can’t walk alone”, before imploring “I just need a little more time” in a fractured, strained falsetto that warrants multiple replays. As if reeling from such openness, it is followed by the playfully snarky ‘Strange’ which charges along with an unashamedly affected vocal informing the listener of the many lies told by dubious lovers. The guitar playing on it is truly staggering, proceeding at a speed that feels impossible. Perhaps fittingly, another Later performance captures this era rather neatly, Marling toying with the song and bending it into new shapes.

The words of others are borrowed for ‘Gurdjieff’s Daughter’, with much of the lyric built around a story told by Alejandro Jodorowsky about an encounter with the daughter of spiritual teacher G. I. Gurdjieff. During an intimate entanglement in a hotel room, she proffered forth a list of rules by which society should live, many of which have now been appropriated by Marling. For someone reconsidering their place in the general scheme of things, it’s not difficult to see the temptation of the words “Never give orders, just to be obeyed. Never consider yourself or others, without knowing that you’ll change.” Already bedecked with a beautiful chorus and perhaps the album’s finest realisation of her more energised electric sound, it has one final surprise to deliver, suddenly fading with a jangling rapidity that will have fans of The Smiths in raptures.

The title track hinges on the world view of an ageing hippy she encountered in California, planting his motto, “it’s a short movie, man,” at its centre, while ‘How Can I’ seizes the initiative and seems to pave the way for the return home, reinvigorated and restored, though not without concerns. ‘Short Movie’ is a record by an artist shaking her life up, spending a little more time peering at the stars and resisting the lure of the familiar. It is, as a result, a commanding and sincerely fascinating listen that still holds its own, despite not being what Marling intended and lacking the cohesion of most of her others.

Things shifted again after the Virgin Records deal concluded and commenced a run of form – still ongoing – that runs the risk of invoking phrases that sounds like impossible hyperbole. But could it be true that she’s up to a hat trick of masterpieces right now? Because I think it might be. There is more than a touch of the composed, intense brevity of ‘I Speak Because I Can’ about ‘Semper Femina’, a record that served as an homage to her female friends, exploring the world of femininity in search of answers.  Opener ‘Soothing’ is a striking way to commence proceedings, the rhythm section’s simmering malevolence reinforcing the message “I banish you with love” as intimacy ends and the subject is told “you don’t live here anymore.” It couldn’t go anywhere else on the record and the interplay across the soundstage is an intricate, immersive experience with Rob Moose’s work on the arrangement setting the bar for what follows.

‘Wild Fire’, which reflects on how Marling appears in a friend’s diary, is a beautifully executed piece of Laurel Canyon soul, while ‘The Valley’ attempts to understand another woman’s palpable sense of loss supported by strings that initially seem to be offering gentle, almost predictable support before they start to ascend, extend and envelope everything. If you can make it to the end with dry eyes, I truly don’t know what you’re made of. And it is this instinctive emotional reaction that seems to have become inherent in her work since the start of this second phase of her career. There are songs that reduce me to a tear-stained wreck on each of her most recent three albums and they reveal themselves over time. Ever the reluctant explainer of her own work and prone to imbuing her songs with multiple layers of character and metaphor in order to explore her own reactions to the world, it is amazing just how much these songs mutate according to the context that we bring to them.

‘Next Time’ reflects on regret, initially in delicately acoustic surroundings before a manic, fuzzy string break suggests that it might not be so easy to put the ghosts to bed. It is thrilling, once again demonstrating that ingenious arrangements can communicate with us in a way far beyond normal words. “Lately I wonder if all my pondering is taking up too much ground,” is one of the standout lyrics of ‘Always This Way’. And what about that little stuttering drum beat half way through the already sublime ‘Don’t Pass Me By’. Just as she so often pushes, pulls, twists and tweaks her voice to great effect, Marling is also consistently so alert to finding those moments of difference in structure that become treasured gems in and of themselves.

Having not enjoyed the act of self-producing 2015’s ‘Short Movie’, Marling recruited fellow guitarist Blake Mills to take control for ‘Semper Femina’. His fondness for pushing familiar sounds beyond their natural confines has a subtle but defining impact upon these nine songs that cohere into. The album concludes with the melodic crunch of ‘Nothing, Not Nearly’, a hasty spoken-sung vocal almost pulling the band with it towards a swooning chorus before an abrupt end announced with footsteps, a closed Ibsen-inspired door and birdsong.

I’ve written about Laura’s music for seventeen years and it’s noticeable how quickly I realised that I was at risk of taking her genius for granted. When I used to tie myself to end of year list write-ups, I’d agonise over her ending up somewhere in the teens of my countdown when perhaps she should have been close to the top. At no point, however, was I more complacent about the genuine beauty being proffered by this singular artist than on 2020’s ‘Song For Our Daughter’. It was so obviously magnificent from the off, gifted to her audience early after the pandemic wrecked all of the planned promotion around its intended traditional autumnal release – as she put it to Craig McLean for Wallpaper, “I am autumn! All my music comes out in the autumn.” – it delivered a concise, meticulously crafted collection of songs that presented her in the form of her life. I adored it that summer, but raved about it far less than I might have and only really found myself moist-eyed at massive swathes of it when returning to the album in the context of considering her latest. The aforementioned ‘For You’ is truly exquisite, in whichever arrangement, and listen to that title track. The rhythms of ‘Strange Girl’, the vocal lilt of ‘Alexandra’, the bodily ache at the heart of ‘The End Of The Affair’ – all in under thirty-seven minutes. I’m experiencing a little shiver just thinking of these songs, given how deeply connected to them I feel. It is the true beauty of art and, particularly, music in its short but meticulous moments. What a gift it is to access feelings at that sort of level because of the expression of another.

Before turning our attention to album eight, perhaps it’s worth a moment to consider where her extra-curricular work as one half of LUMP fits in. Both of their records are magnificent, the second, ‘Animal’, proving to be especially accomplished in situating her in the world of electronic music, the two song-suites crafted in collaboration with Mike Lindsay capturing one of those heartening relationships where two souls simply discover they function symbiotically. No interrogation of this fact is needed, it just works. The natural ebb and flow of the music is bewitching, scooping up the listener and sweeping them towards an oddly blissful conclusion, following the spoken word credits, of course. For Lump is a product, as we know.

To get a sense of where the project sits in Marling’s affections, let’s take one last visit to the Uncut piece where she reflected on her work for some thoughts on LUMP: “Mike and I have now made two albums and toured, but we don’t really know each other too well, and are paranoid about maintaining that distance between the two of us, so we don’t lose that quality. Lump is the greatest pleasure in my life now, because it doesn’t feel like mine.” Possibly worth pointing out that that interview happened long before she had her child.

And, on that subject. we arrive at a new album. ‘Patterns In Repeat’ has been built up from demos recorded when her daughter was around six months old, having relocated various bits of her home studio from the basement. While no longer soundproofed in the living room, Marling was able to set about recording whenever moments presented themselves and some of the ambient noise of home life is caught up in these truly special new songs. They have gone everywhere with me these past three months. Summer walks, long evenings, rain-flecked afternoons, car journeys, trips out and anywhere else I could squeeze it in.

Four years on from naming her previous release after a fictional daughter, Laura Marling’s very real child is a seismic figure in the lyrics, recordings and methodology of her latest. Dashing between domesticity and a domestic studio, she has crafted ten landscapes that are simultaneously viscerally autobiographical and like being subsumed by her bookshelves.

The atmospheric room-hiss at the album’s core is one of its central sounds, a texture positioning Marling’s eighth as her most honest yet. Music can be many things - bricks, pillars, missiles, pens and mirrors - in unlocking and understanding our worlds and ourselves, but rarely do records so rapidly weld themselves to your soul. When, however, an artist eschews polish and perfection to preserve a bewitching intimacy, it’s impossible to resist.

Opener ‘Child Of Mine’ commences with a baby’s babble and Marling’s instinctive giggle, building slowly to a level that routinely moves me to tears. It latterly considers the dichotomy of many parenting experiences, “long nights, fast years, so they say.” Please, please sleep, but don’t let these days and months disappear too soon. ‘No One’s Going To Love You Like I Can’ is an astonishing two minutes, beginning as a confidential moment at a reverberant piano, only for an exquisite Bernsteinian arrangement to mark the exact half-way point, swelling and retreating so stealthily it seems unthinkable that it leaves such an impression.

‘The Shadows’ truly aches, with its ominously hummed backing vocals and anguished narrator. The strings, as so often, are divinely drawn, shifting shape frequently and never simply ornamental. ‘Caroline’ is an unlikely masterpiece, using a half-remembered song as a metaphor for a lost love attempting to re-establish contact, years after breaking off the relationship. Writing out its ostensibly childlike chorus cannot do it justice, but a whole world exists in those two hundred seconds and, “I’d like you not to call again, I’d like to keep you off my mind,” radiates the feeling of denying yourself possible happiness because you cannot risk the pitfalls.

A particular chord progression suffuses the record, most notably in the related early single ‘Patterns’ and the title-track that closes proceedings. The former explores the repetition of the cycle of existence through generations, its arrangement subtly splintering as Marling sings “pulled for meaning, I arched my back and then from the black you were born,” and life is changed forever. The latter piece probes the mother-daughter relationship and ends with an unconditional declaration to her child.

‘Looking Back’ was originally written by Marling’s father half a century ago, but she offers her own interpretation here, channelling that desire to fully understand your parents’ lives before they’re no longer there to tell you. A man in his twenties imagining an old man reflecting being reimagined by a woman in her thirties looking at the old man he has become is quite the thing. It’s beautiful, but then it all is, even the initially unsettling instrumental ‘Interlude’ (her second by that name, fact fans. Good luck to the algorithm) which slowly reveals the sweetness behind the intensity, early motherhood in three minutes. ‘Lullaby’, which very much does what it says on the tin, is so beautiful that a shorter, alternative, instrumental version closes the album, wrapping around the title track. I couldn’t quite believe that the decision had been taken to add an instrumental of track 9 as track 11 when it was appended to the tracklist, but it really works, providing an emotional off ramp for an album that can overwhelm the listener’s feelings.

‘Patterns In Repeat’ may be at risk of being perceived as slight, given the wilfully delicate nature of these songs and complete absence of drums. But, as Marling states on that magnificent first track, “those who miss the point might rush through it,” and this is a record that, fittingly, rewards the repeat listener as its impact evolves.

While there is surely much more to come from Laura Marling, we are now up to date. However, she has talked of the possibility of stopping. Indeed, her writing about her work on the aforementioned Substack is quite sincerely fascinating. It’s well worth a fiver a month for the insight it offers and the audio uploads which live only in that domain. In her very first post, she offered some context:

My father reminded me recently of a phrase I heard a lot (from him) when I was young - good artists do what they can, great artists do what they must. It haunted me in my early twenties when I realised I didn't have the ambition to do what I must. The meaning of this, as I understood it, was that the great artist would be undeterred by the constraints of personal relationships or responsibilities, and would not waste a moment reflecting on the trail of destruction left behind them in pursuit of their art. I always wanted to be a wife and a mother, and have always done well within the bounds of responsibility - I am loyal in my Aquarius nature. This is why I’ve never much cared to answer the question of what this or that song is about in absolute terms, I have always gone to great lengths to obfuscate in order to allow myself to believe that whoever might be the subject of a song cannot be harmed by its existence. This is not always the case and has given me pause more than once as to whether or not I should proceed with my art at all.

Thankfully, she has so far proceeded for seventeen years. In arriving at what is, arguably, her best yet, it is to be hoped that we will be able to witness the continuing evolution of a unique artist who speaks to me and many listeners in a way unlike any other. A dear friend has only recently become acquainted with her work – you’re welcome, Laura – and they are truly head over heels. I am faintly jealous of the ability to encounter all of these albums for the first time. To be exposed to the frankly implausible range and development contained in those hours of recorded music. They are so frequently moved, rocked and delighted by different songs that it has cast them in a new light for me also. It is testament to the otherworldly hold that music can have over us that the songs can bond with us and bond us to each other also. Whether you’re in the same position and about to embark or just wondering whether to sample her latest, ‘Patterns In Repeat’ is a quite breathtaking work of art. Give it time, open your heart and let it be there for you. You won’t regret it.

This is an accompanying playlist. You can also find an audio version of the above essay in the feed of The Plural Of Vinyl podcast here.