Laura Marling - Alas, I Cannot Swim

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

At just 18 years of age, Laura Marling has a maturity that is surprisingly refreshing on this her debut album which at just 38 minutes in duration seems to go far too quickly. It was the first track on this album, and lead single "Ghosts" - a simple tale of a young couple and the baggage that each carried into their new relationship "the ghosts that broke my heart before I met you" - that made me check the album out. I wasn't disappointed, it's a solid album that doesn't have a bad moment on it and I would highly recommend it!

Ghosts video: uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XonJJbV54BE
Night Terror video: uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rsIKbH9p9zI
My Manic & I video: uk.youtube.com/watch?v=djChY6Ol9ig
New Romantic video: uk.youtube.com/watch?v=zNxar07_9YA

TRACKLISTING:

01 Ghosts
02 Old Stone
03 Tap At My Window
04 Failure
05 You're No God
06 Cross Your Fingers
07 Crawled Out Of The Sea
08 My Manic & I
09 Night Terror
10 Captain & The Hour Glass
11 Shine
12 Dora

[That Skipping Rope.]

Yeah, I downloaded this the other day. I need to give it a better listen, but it was very pleasant.

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

Oh, which were your favourite tracks Alex?

I'm loving "Cross Your Fingers", "Ghosts", "Night Terror" and "The Captain and the Hourglass".

But they're all really really good.

[That Skipping Rope.]

I really like "Old Stone," "Cross Your Fingers," "Crawled Out of the Sea," "Shine," and "The Captain and the Hourglass."

She really reminds me of a singer I'd think you like, Nicole Atkins.
www.myspace.com/nicoleatkins

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

Cool. I'll make sure to check out her music.

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

Debuts at #45 on the UK album chart.

[backintime]

This album is really really good.

[That Skipping Rope.]

From the Jamie Cullum fan club e-mail bit "Jamie Recommends":

Laura Marling doesn't merely sing about what's to be expected from someone her age - love, lust and romance. The futility of religion, self-loathing and human psychology are also common themes in her provocative, extremely mature creations. With comparisons to folk heroes Joni Mitchell and Carole King, as well as Kate Bush, her deft, cool phrasing is suggestive of someone who has a story to tell, and knows how to tell it.

Laura released her debut album 'Alas I Cannot Swim' on Monday 11th February.

A limited edition 'Song Box' containing her debut album 'Alas I Cannot Swim, a concert ticket and beautifully designed mementos relating to each track on the album is also out now.

'I want people to love music, I want people to treasure it, not just my songs, but treasure music.' Laura Marling.

For more information about Laura Marling go to: lauramarling.com

[TotallyEnormousExtinctDinosaur]

I really like "Ghosts." Even though Will taught me about the dirty hidden innuendo of the lyrics.

Very nice song though.

[backintime]

All Music Guide gave it 3.5 stars

Due to her youth (16 when she first hit Myspace, 17 when signed to an imprint of EMI and 18 when her debut album came out), perky-cute looks and extremely British diction, singer-songwriter Laura Marling got a lot of comparisons to Lily Allen in her early buzz, but the quietly compelling Alas I Cannot Swim is not at all a frothy pop confection. A folk-tinged AAA pop record based on Marling's alluringly husky voice and graceful acoustic guitar, Alas I Cannot Swim would be more aptly compared to the likes of Feist, Keren Ann or Regina Spektor. (In the album's press kit, Marling reveals her primary influence to be Bonnie "Prince" Billy, which also seems appropriate.) Although not to draw too forbidding a comparison, opening track and first single "Ghosts" is most strongly reminiscent of Joni Mitchell circa For the Roses, both in Marling's expressive vocal phrasing and the expert shifts in the arrangement between solo acoustic passages and full-band sections, not to mention an excellently deployed string section. That old-school 1970s singer-songwriter vibe predominates throughout the album, in fact. There's one straight-up pop song here, the deceptively chipper-sounding "Cross Your Fingers" ("...hold your toes/We're all gonna die when the building blows" continues the sweetly-sung chorus), but aside from that, Alas I Cannot Swim is the kind of album that takes a couple of listens for its charms to completely sink in. Rather than swath every track in prominent, ear-grabbing hooks, Marling and producer Charlie Fink choose to keep the decorations off in the distance on songs like "The Captain and Hourglass," where swells of pedal steel stay buried deep in the mix under Marling's hypnotic guitar line and quietly insistent vocals. There's every chance that Laura Marling will get lost in the shuffle as the unexpected commercial success of Feist's The Reminder leads major labels to unleash hordes of similarly talented female singer-songwriters, but Alas I Cannot Swim is far better than the average coffeehouse-endorsed girlypop.

[TotallyEnormousExtinctDinosaur]

There's a write-up about her in the new issue of Entertainment Weekly in a section about "the new wave of Lillith." Some early US exposure!

[That Skipping Rope.]

I adore this album now. Really relaxing musically, but extremely powerful lyrically.

The bonus track, the title track, is like woah good.

[backintime]

Is it...?

[That Skipping Rope.]

Oh, it's just the track tagged onto the end of the last track.

[backintime]

Ah, I thought you might mean that. I never listen to it because I hate the last track. I'll give it a try, though

[That Skipping Rope.]

Ah! She reminds me of Doloros O'Riordan. I knew she sounded familiar.

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

I've just been listening to this, sounds so great with this Spring sunshine we're having today.

The strings at the end of "Night Terror" are so beautiful! *Swoons*

[TotallyEnormousExtinctDinosaur]

Big feature in Spin Magazine this month!

Laura Marling
English folkie hates crowds, loves Victorian lit.

Laura Marling, photographed for Spin in London, Jan. 7, 2008 by Clare ShillandWith her gently bewitching songs about bad dreams and broken hearts— not to mention her flaxen hair, snow white skin, and searching blue eyes— teenage singer/songwriter Laura Marling is proud to come off more Wuthering Heights than The Hills. "I've always loved books by the Brontë sisters," purrs Marling, who was raised in the sleepy village of Eversley. "I love Jane Austen, too. I'm more influenced by people like her than by pop culture." But it hasn’t always been easy for this Brontë girl to fit into a Britney world. "The other students at school didn't like my music," says the 18-year-old. "To them, being a folksinger was like, 'Oh, whatever.' They'd never come across anything like it."

Then again, not everyone has a father who chooses Neil Young's junkie blues "The Needle and the Damage Done" as the first song to teach his little girl. ("It's a good one for basic picking," explains Marling.) After learning the fundamentals, she began working on her own material, finding inspiration in Will Oldham's sepia-toned Americana.

"Listening to [Oldham projects] Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Palace made me take music more seriously," says Marling, who was approached by Virgin only two weeks after her first London gig. (She was 15 at the time.) Out this spring, her debut album, Alas I Cannot Swim, is full of literate tunes that call to mind Bryter Layter as sung by Beth Orton’s younger sister. The "brutally honest" Marling sounds accomplished beyond her years on cuts like "New Romantic," on which she whispers, "Maybe I should give up…and turn into my mother / God knows I love her."

Still, Marling needed her parents' approval to relocate to the British capital, where she's had to learn to tamp down her performance anxiety. "People think I look odd onstage," says the shy singer, whose live appearances are a study in introverted charisma. "But the way I deal with being incredibly nervous is by concentrating really hard." Good thing she's learned to cope. "I don't need to sell tons of records, but I want longevity. I want to make music for the rest of my life," Marling says, sounding not unlike Jane Eyre.

FAST FACTS:

Marling gets anxious backstage, too. “I couldn’t bring myself to say hello,” she says of Devendra Banhart, for whom she opened four dates last fall. “But then we shared a dressing room, and I had to.”
You can take the girl out of Eversley, but…“I live in a village-y part of London,” she says. “There are lots of trees and no one’s ever around. That’s how I like it.”

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

Laura was on BBC 2's The Culture Show this evening.

The show can be watched again on the BBC iPlayer here: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b009f428.shtml

(not sure if it works outside of the UK though and it's currently streaming last weeks episode still )

She also played a set at South By Southwest on Friday with Noah and the Whale.

Laura Marling proved endearing to the crowd this afternoon at SXSW with a show at the French Legation Museum.

Wearing a t-shirt and skinny jeans, her blond hair cropped short, the singer was joined by a drummer/ukulele player and violinist for her set, which took place in the museum's gardens a short walk from downtown.

The singer had minutes earlier performed an additional set on backing vocals duty for Noah and the Whale.

“Hello, I'm Laura" she said simply before launching into ‘Ghosts’.

Remaining largely silent between songs, Marling enjoyed rapturous attention from the audience, many of whom who sat cross-legged on the grass in the shade of a large canopy.

"Being a pale person, I can't tell you how nice it is to be in the shade, I'd a really hard day yesterday, I didn't bring any suntan lotion," she said.

Finishing with ‘Shine’ the atmosphere took on a jamboree vibe as the audience whooped, hollered and clapped along.

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

Somebody has very kindly uploaded her performance to YouTube. ;D
You can see it here: uk.youtube.com/watch?v=33TwklwdNXM

[That Skipping Rope.]

This is out in the states now. I'm going to pick it up tomorrow.

[RedDragon]

“My songs are not pretty. They're what I call optimistic realism." Is how Marling describes her work.

Love that.

[The Seldom Seen Kid]

The next single will be "Cross Your Fingers".

[That Skipping Rope.]

"The Captain And Hourglass" makes me want to cry. Uggh.

She is too good.

[That Skipping Rope.]

Demos, b-sides, live etc.

Answering Bell (Ryan Adams cover)
Anywhere With Meaning
Candle Light
Dreaming
Ghosts That Broke My Heart
Good Man Bad Habit
Heartbreaker's Handbook
I Know You!!
Lolita
London Town
Love Me Then Leave Me
Mexico
New Romantic
Only My Opinion
She's Changed
Shine
Soulless Child
Such a Shame
The Man Sings About Romance
Typically sh*t

Let me know if anyone's interested.