The singer celebrates early parenthood on this gently gobsmacking record
Cool and collected on the outside and deeply enigmatic just beneath, folk singer Laura Marling has become a hugely beloved cult artist while seeming never to raise her voice. She first emerged as one of the key figures in the “nu-folk” movement in the 2000s, yet even as close friends such asand Noah and the Whale were pilloried as posh kids cosplaying as singing hobbits, Marling suffered minimal reputational damage. When the nu-folk ship went down, she floated away unscathed.
Marling was too inscrutable to be tied down to a time, place or scene. That elusive quality remains a defining feature of her work and contributes to the mystery that infuses her mesmerising eighth album,Largely written in the sleep-deprived months after the birth of her daughter, the record is, at one level, a celebration of the joys of new.
As ever, the true miracle is her voice, which, accompanied by understated acoustic guitar, has an ancient, earthy feel while being conversational and throwaway. The eeriness cuts through even when the lyrics err towards the naff – as they do on opening track “Child Of Mine” .To rhyme “kitchen” with “bitchin’” and not kill the vibe is testament to the delightful uncanniness of her delivery and her spectral strumming.
Wide-screen melancholy likewise frames “Caroline”, a bare-boned piece told from the perspective of an older man whose world is upturned by the return of a woman he had expected never to see again . Here, Marling’s singing has a dark edge – she is telling a story full of pain and confusion, yet her narrator relays the tale with a mordant wit.
This gently gobsmacking record concludes with the title track, which presents Marling’s domestic bliss with her daughter as part of the universal experience of growing up, and passing the torch to the next generation. Here is everyday life elevated to poetry – a beautiful full-stop at the end of an album that brims with quiet wonder.
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