from Laura Marling
"I've never experienced anything like that last gig in Calcutta. I don't write songs that people can dance to, but I wouldn't write songs if I didn't want people to listen to them. Apart from the 5 expats at the front, nobody else wanted us to be there. But, like, it was out last gig, and I just felt like I wasn't going to be defeated by this. So I only played four songs, but I screamed them. If you put it in that horrible way, an entertainer, that's basically what I am; and that's what I had to be in India. I just had to just play the songs and try and make people like them or make sure the people were having a good time. And I'd never really thought of the craft of being an entertainer before."
"With a fear of death comes a fear of insignificance, and I thought well, whatever happens I'm going to be ok because I've done some things. It's not about being something as in being famous; it's being something as in being something to someone. And for me, the idea of being something is actively doing something with your life that positively impacts other people. If you can make people's day a bit better. You don't have to fix their problems, but you just have to make them feel a little more secure."
"When I was growing up...I always thought that I would really like life in Jane Austen-era England; but that's because I'd read that in books and gone, 'That's brilliant.' Her female characters are just so cutting and witty and subtle. But then, you know, it was probably a pretty horrible life, being a woman in a house for ever. But I liked the idea of the way things were done then."
"Court and Spark was the first album I owned that I listened to over and over. Its actually quite easy listening, the lyrics are simple but striking and the craftsmanship of the entire album is really special. She bridges a few gaps between genres she later went into with more depth, so it's the one I always come back to, but it's closely followed by Blue and Hejira.
"I remember my father playing me Same Situation when I was a nipper, and saying how nobody since has done melodies as well as Joni Mitchell. I concur. The thing that most affected me was just her resonance, and that is something she must have been born with."
"When I finished touring 'I Speak Because I Can,' I moved into a flat with an old friend who has an amazing Macintosh pre-amp and Tannoy speakers and I just went mad on vinyl. All my money now goes to vinyl. I found this one record by a guy called Jim Sullivan and this label Light in the Attic Records who put out these forgotten gems. Most of the stuff they put out happens to be from 1969 so I got obsessed with records made in 1969. Quite random stuff like Nancy and Lee and Steppenwolf
(From a short interview with Theo Speilberg of Spinner. Jim Sullivan, who is mentioned above, released his debut album, U.F.O., in 1969 and became quite popular in Malibu, CA in the ensuing few years. In 1975, he and his family set out on a trip from Los Angeles to Nashville looking for a record deal. They disappeared near Santa Rosa, New Mexico and were never heard from again.)
According to a report in The Guardian, Niki Minaj will duet with Laura Marling. No details are yet available.
On 3 December 2011 Marling performed at the 3rd Annual Daytrotter Holiday Benefit with M WARD at the Rock Island Brewing Company, 1815 2nd Ave, Rock Island, Illinois. M.WARD is also half of the duo SHE AND HIM, the other half being Zooey Deschanel.
Alessi's Ark, who supported Marling on her 2011 US tour, is Alessi Laurent-Marke, born in the same year as Laura Marling but 149 days later. She called herself Alessi's Ark to avoid being confused with the Alessi Brothers. On she recently released her second album Time Travel.
According to the NEW YORK POST, the man who inspired the ADELE album that won 6 Grammys and a Brit Award was Slinky Sunbeam, whose website alleges that he was "formerly a bassist with Laura Marling".
ADELE told BBC NEWSBEAT that I SPEAK BECAUSE I CAN is her favourite album of the year. she said this about Marling:
"I'm such a fan of Laura Marling and always was before she even released her first album. She just gets better. She leaves me wanting more and I'm always really curious about her songs. Sometimes I can relate to them but sometimes I don't understand. She constantly leaves me curious. That's what I like in an artist. She really sticks to her guns."
Photographer Jason Lucas of Chillicothe, Ohio has published a book of photos entitled all of this can be broken. The title was inspired by the Laura Marling song DEVIL'S SPOKE. The book is available on Amazon for $34.99.
In a brief interview with FAULT MAGAZINE, things about Marling were revealed. Her favourite artist is photographer Nan Goldin; she has no favourite fashion designer; her all-time favourite film is LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL (I'm assuming she means the 1997 Italian film that won three Oscars. There are at least six films with that title.), and she considers her worst habit to be Marmite.
Times music critic Pete Paphides hosted a show on BBC6 on the resurgence of vinyl recordings. Marling appeared on the show and provided him with this playlist of her recent vinyl acquisitions:
The September Washington D.C. concert can be listened to in its entirety at the NPR site.
In Vogue Magazine, British actor Carey Mulligan stated that her iPod was filled with Laura Marling, Kate Rusby, and Emilíana Torrini.
At Glastonbury (2010), Laura Marling's performance resulted in a couple's becoming engaged. And Marling was special guest at BBC introducing stage.
Lynn Roberts of forfolkssake.com profiled SOPHIE MILNER, who did the cover art for the album I SPEAK BECAUSE I CAN, and for the Mumford & Sons EP LOVE YOUR GROUND.
"I've written this EP, this collection of quite simplistic songs and I'm about to decide whether I'm going to do them in a grungy style or, I'm particularly fond of funk at the moment, so there's a massive fork in the road and I don't know which one I'm more comfortable (with)."
"Timber Timbre are usually a band. They're not exactly perky, but they usually add some pleasant touches. But tonight they are instead represented by one guy with a Satanist's chin beard, who brings out their dark, dark heart. He sits and slowly strums a blues guitar that drips menacingly with reverb. His voice chills whilst his music is echoing, deep, and terrifying; imagine the mood on a submarine where the power has gone and the only other person on board is singing murder ballads about you."
THE BEAST now has its own website. The site
consists mainly of a profusely illustrated poem by Marling
expanding on the song's theme. Here's one of the verses:
But without my ask I stretched and swelled,
And from my depths a child expelled.
My hands embraced an empty womb,
I fell and curled, prepared for tomb.
Marling's inspiration for the poem comes from a quote from Thomas Jefferson about the abolition of slavery: "We have the wolf by the ears and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go." She told an interviewer for Q recently that the poem is read by Gil Landry of the Old Crow Medicine Show. Asked why she selected Landry, she said: "I liked the idea of having a deeply masculine voice reading what are essentially deeply feminine thoughts."
The illustrations for the aforementioned BEAST site were done by SHYNOLA, a group of three London visual artists, Chris Harding, Richard Kenworthy and Jason Groves. They also are responsible for the artwork associated with ACIDK.
"My first love was punk, and my current love is punk, so maybe there's a punk album coming, though I probably wouldn't do it under my name."
Marling perched on the small bench between us and, without a word, began to play a song so new, it wasn't on her latest album. As I sat, staring into Marling's eyes and watching her fingers glide across her guitar, the wild excitement I'd felt upon entering the room quickly morphed into a strange sense of calm. Marling's voice ricocheted offevery surface of the small room and enveloped me like a thick security blanket. Though I can't speak for Marling - who never met my gaze - I realized that it wasn't awkwardness I felt in that strange white room. It was a level of intimacy rarely experienced, let alone with strangers. I was so close to Marling that at one point, I actually found myself counting the freckles on her face.
"The name Florence and the Machine started off as a private joke that got out of hand. I made music with my friend, who we called Isabella Machine to which I was Florence Robot. When I was about an hour away from my first gig, I still didn't have a name, so I thought 'Okay, I'll be Florence Robot/Isa Machine', before realising that name was so long it'd drive me mad."
Ruth De Turberville started playing the cello and singing at a young age in the various orchestras and choirs of her home county of Berkshire, UK. She is classically trained.
She has done numerous live and studio recordings with the Cambridge band "The Winter Kings", and is now a part of Laura Marling's band.
The Telegraph has published a list of the 50 most collectable records. Number 39 on the list is Laura Marling's LONDON TOWN EP. Number one on the list is GOD SAVE THE QUEEN by the Sex Pistols.
A limited edition Marling 7-inch (that's a 45 in the US) is part of Third Man Records' Blue Series of releases. Marling performed Jackson C Frank's Blues Run The Game and Neil Young's The Needle And The Damage Done and White sat in the producer's chair for the session, which was done at White's Nashville studio. It is available from THIRD MAN RECORDS.
A vinyl version of I SPEAK BECAUSE I CAN was released on 28 March and PICCADILLY RECORDS has the best price on it (£21.99).
SOPHIA, the penultimate track on A Creature I Don't Know, received its first radio play on Zane Lowe's BBC Radio 1 show. The 7 inch vinyl of SOPHIA (B-side is a WNYC live performance of REST IN THE BED) is now available in the US and Canada from Ribbon Music. Price is 7 (probably US) dollars. Delivery to Canada is $6, delivery to US is $4.50.
Marling discusses the song Sophia in a short radio interview.
ACIDK merchandise is now available and there are now four t-shirts and two different totes. The shirts are £20 and £15. Totes are £15 and £10. Some are pictured above.
"...it's just a guy, about my age, on his way back from a gig. He asks us if we know who Laura Marling is, and we say we do, and he says we look like we would (I don't know what that means). He'd been to see her that night, on his own, and had been standing right in front of the stage and had lifted his leg up there to reveal to Laura Marling a tattoo, from his ankle to halfway up his calf.
"It said 'Laura Marling'. In child-like hand writing, large, with two child-like flowers at each end.
"It was not the best tattoo I'd ever seen.
"The woman herself saw it and proclaimed him to be 'the most chronically weird' fan ever, to which he replied that he was drunk when he got it done. So she told him he was 'the coolest' fan ever. Respect to her for acknowledging him. It must be really, really odd when people you've never met ink your name on their body permanently."
The iTunes version of
A CREATURE I DON'T KNOW includes
the song FLICKER AND FAIL.
ACIDK can be ordered from Amazon.uk, or (in the US) from Ribbon Music. In both places there is a SPECIAL EDITION, which contains the CD album, a DVD including acoustic performance, the Sophia music video & a short film, a 12 inch vinyl LP album with an anamorphic picture disk and guitar slide viewer, and a high quality MP3 album download.
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