Laura Marling
FOLLOW-UP to this spring’s Song For Our Daughter A may be a little way off, explains Laura Marling. “If I’m on the road for an extended period of time, I tend to have written an album by the time I get back,” she says. “Obviously that’s been completely scuppered by coronavirus. When I’m at home, I play the guitar but I don’t really feel the need to write – I mean, I’m at home, I’ve got nothing to miss.”
For now, though, there’s her extensive back catalogue to enjoy, and it’s this body of work that the songwriter is taking us through here; from her first studio experiences to orchestral arrangements for three bass guitars, via her own personal highpoint, 2013’s Once I Was An Eagle: “It’s just one of those things, maybe a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
Along the way, Marling ponders her time in Los Angeles, being one half of Lump and her mission as a solo artist today. “I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel,” she says. “As much as I love Blake Mills’ production on Semper Femina – and I would take that any day – really it’s about whether I’m a good songwriter. That’s all I’m really interested in.”
ALAS, I CANNOT SWIM
VIRGIN, 2008
Marling’s debut, produced by Noah And The Whale’s Charlie Fink
We had four weeks at Eastcote Studios, two weeks doing my record and then a further two weeks back to back doing the Noah And The Whale record. We laid down the bass, drums, guitar and vocal all at once, and then we did overdubs – this is the same for all albums I’ve done, pretty much. My dad ran a recording studio which shut down when I was quite small, but I remember growing up around all
