Laura Marling,
A Creature I Don’t Know
I say again: she was BORN IN THE NINETEEN NINETIES. With the precociousness and the self-possession, I suppose you could say that that’s what your £17,000 a year in private school fees pays for, but the darkness and the depth displayed are part of some whole other mystery.
And Creature is far darker than its two predesessors, and more of a piece. One in which she’s driven by demons, but not ones she’s afraid of – these are ones she uses to become the pursuer, “I’m nothing but the beast, and I’ll call on you when I need to feast.” she sings on “The Muse”. The darkness in herself also seems to give her a hunger for the darkness in others, and this strong sexual allure is what many of the songs here play with, especially the album’s centrepiece “The Beast”: “tonight I sleep with the Beast“. Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?
As ever it’s mainly all about Marling’s cool, conversational croon set to her fingerplucked guitar, with occasional bursts of chamber pop, and sometimes even panoramic keyboard-driven crescendos. Obvious comparisons to Joni Mitchell, Fairport Convention, and many other folky, confessional singer-songwritery acts of her parents’ generation can be put down to Marling undoubtedly absorbing it all whilst sat on her music teacher father’s knee. But the 21 year old (okay, we should give the age thing a rest now) is making something unique here, and absolutely head-and-shoulders above her nu-folk contemporaries. Once or twice her songs almost threaten to slide into cosy, Radio 2, Eddie Reader territory, but the Marling’s kinetic drive, and flint-like intelligence always always pushes them well clear. Towering.
