Laura Marling's new album, ONCE I WAS AN EAGLE, (release date 27 May UK, 28 May US) can be pre-ordered from Amazon UK (and Amazon US). In the US the album download is available for pre-order on iTunes for $10. An immediate download of track #10 (Where Can I Go?) comes with the iTunes pre-order.
The entire album ONCE I WAS AN EAGLE can be streamed at The Guardian website.
TRACKLIST
1. Take The Night Off
2. I Was An Eagle
3. You Know
4. Breathe
5. Master Hunter
6. Little Love Caster
7. Devil's Resting Place
8. Interlude
9. Undine
10. Where Can I Go?
11. Once
12. Pray For Me
13. When Were You Happy?
(And How Long Has That Been)
14. Love Be Brave
15. Little Bird
16. Saved These Words
Track 10, Where Can I Go, is onSoundcloud
Becca Pieters opened for Marling in Gainesville, FL on 16 October. Pieters used to call herself WHITE ELEPHANT GIFT EXCHANGE. Under that name, she released on EP in 2009.
In Vogue Magazine, British actor Carey Mulligan stated that her iPod was filled with Laura Marling, Kate Rusby, and Emilíana Torrini.
When Times music critic Pete Paphides hosted a show on BBC6 on the resurgence of vinyl recordings early in 2012, Marling appeared on the show and provided him with this playlist of her recent vinyl acquisitions:
ADELE told BBC NEWSBEAT that I SPEAK BECAUSE I CAN is one of her favourite albums. 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."
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".
Ryan Adams told NME how he reacted to hearing Laura Marling's 2010 album I SPEAK BECAUSE I CAN: "I literally threw out 80 per cent of what I had (for the next album). And it felt good to ask: 'What am I really capable of? I felt competitive again to write great songs." His album, ASHES AND FIRE, which was the subject of all that revision, was released in 2011.
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.
Some time ago, The Guardian reported that Niki Minaj would duet with Laura Marling. There has been no further news on this.
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.
The September 2011 Washington D.C. concert can be listened to in its entirety at the NPR site.
EllieMakesMusic, who has many covers of Marling songs on YouTube, has posted this how-to video on Marling's song MY FRIENDS.
"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."
"I'm not religious; I'm not romantic and I live purely by logic. I make every decision by logic and sometimes that leads me to the right and sometimes to the wrong decision. But if I don't think about things logically, I can't do it. Things will stress me out."
"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.)
In an interview with Colin Joyce
of SPIN Magazine, Marling said her new album was strongly influenced by music from the
late 1960's, specifically records by Nancy Sinatra, Lee Hazelwood, and David Axelrod, that were made
"...around the time that the Beatles were using Eastern-sounding instruments and atonal scales.
Those influences freed my guitar playing a lot, and I tend to write melodies on guitar as well. So the melodies
were a little bit more free and uncomfortable sounding at first. [On the song 'I Was an Eagle'] there's a
hurdy gurdy, which isn't Eastern but does have that atonal feel."
Standard fans may not notice it, but Marling is a studied virtuoso in the basic tenets of what makes for true folk songwriting. She balances a diverse approach to chords and melodies, leaning heavily on root-and-chord progressions and modal melodic change-ups. Marling needs no capo—the locking device that allows the guitar to be played in a different key without re-tuning—she wields the skill to play chords in any key required without the added help.
Gemma Hampson, writing for Clash Magazine, called ONCE I WAS AN EAGLE "a beautiful achievement", and
went on to say:It's speckled with varying styles from Balkan to Americana, and sewn together with some of Marling's most tender songwriting of recent years...There’s a Jolie Holland (or Jodie Foster) recalling accent creeping in, which is odd for a Hampshire girl. But Marling’s voice is still wonderfully intimate, and mature beyond its years.
She has a proper American address, a house number in the thousands on a residential road the length of Oxford Street. Her building was a factory in the 1920s and now it's full of pleasant, compact apartments...Inside Marling's place, neat and mostly kitchen, there are various markers of west coast living. A wooden table was made for her on Venice Beach by a carpenter called Jesus. There's a 1970s copy of Playboy lying about and a jar on the windowsill, heaped with cigarette ends, that once contained organic tahini.
According to UNCUT MAGAZINE, Laura Marling briefly abandoned music last year and trained as a chef.
The singer/songwriter was plunged into a deep depression after ending a dysfunctional relationship, and she was gripped with crippling self-doubt about her chosen career. The Brit became convinced her life as a musician would not last, so she decided to take a break and re-train for a new vocation as a restaurant cook.
Pete Roe, a member of Marling's band since 2007,
has released a solo album, Our Beloved Bubble. The 9-track CD can be ordered from Roe's website. Marling made a surprise appearance at Roe's
single launch show at the Wilmington Arms in Clerkenwell on 10 April. Roe introduced her
as "my old boss"."Laura Marling, focusing on her new album Once I Was An Eagle, uses her pale beauty with still power, her strong gaze matching the songs' arresting pile-ups of imagery. If you think the torrents of words recall Dylan, well, 'It ain't me, babe,' she chides on 'Master Hunter', and if she hardly seems the devil-marked woman of 'Pray For Me', her desire to try on characters and stories, not confess, is her most Dylanesque trait."
Her [Marling's] simple guitar playing builds into the driving and triumphant sound of an organ (played by the also fantastically folk Pete Roe, I'd wager). All this to say: The song would not be out of place on Joni Mitchell's album, Blue. (Blue, by the way, was also a fourth album.)
Allan Cole, writing on Tumblr, describes Laura Marling's turn as DJ on 18 December at the Notting Hill Arts Club this way:
"The both folky and alternative line-up included Bearskin, Jetta and Marika Hackman – it couldn’t have been more diverse and fun! The club was all dipped in stars and fairy lights and the late-night bonus was a beautiful Laura Marling on the mixing deck. A singer songwriter would perhaps not necessarily be expected to be a smashing electro freak but it was fun watching her and dancing along to RHCP and the like."
In a live session at KEXP Seattle, Marling recently performed three songs from her new album and one new song that has not yet been recorded, titled BLEED ME DRY.
For more reviews of the new album see the INTERVIEWS AND REVIEWS page.
The official video for MASTER HUNTER has been released. It was directed by Fred and Nick, who also directed WHEN BRAVE BIRD SAVED.
Marling's recent appearance on LATER WITH JOOLS HOLLAND is available on YouTube. She performed two songs from the new album, MASTER HUNTER, and ONCE.
Laura Marling has two tattoos. On the inside of her left wrist is the Marling family crest. On her right wrist is the family motto: We Are Prey To None.
The Marling song SHE'S CHANGED was recorded only once, on the LONDON TOWN EP in 2007.
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.
THE BEAST has its own website. The site consists mainly of a profusely illustrated poem by Marling expanding on the song's theme.
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.
A Creature I Don't Know was one of 24 albums in contention for the 2012 Uncut Music Award. It did not make the short list.
Among the ACIDK merchandise now available are now four t-shirts and two different totes. The shirts are £20 and £15. Totes are £15 and £10.
"...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."
On close examination of the stop motion animated video for Marling's cover of The Needle and the Damage Done one can see the 1980 album In the Saddle by New Orleans soul jazz singer Betty Harris.
Hannah Heavenly, age 12, and Arlo Blue, age 9, are HEAVENLY BLUE, a brother and sister duo from the Maltese Island of Gozo (the Isle of Calypso). Hannah is originally from London, but her parents moved to Gozo when she was 2. Arlo was born 9 months later. Hannah writes songs. The duo's favourite artists are Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons, and Bon Iver. Click the button at the beginning of this entry and hear their (very country) version of ALAS I CANNOT SWIM which is included in their eponymous EP now available on iTunes.
This site is not affiliated in any way with Laura Marling or her management.
Alas I Cannot Swim
Cross Your Fingers
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