Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know (2011)

you know what I need
why won't you give it me
must I fall down at your feet
and plead
don't you be scared of me
I'm nothing but the beast
and I'll call on you when I need
to feast

started a new thread b/c a) new album b) last one got a bit nasty c) there wasn't much new album specific talk there anyway.

this is the lead single, it is vg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-TMl5oCRjk

"the beast" is the album's centrepiece (not the song those lyrics are from, though), and it is a fucking astonishing thing.

is this an endorsement???

(of the album, i mean)

the single is so good

not bad

not so keen on sophia but they'll all lovely songs

is this an endorsement???

yes!

i found a tumblr that seems to have a stream of "the beast": http://pulltheripchord.tumblr.com/post/9695930234/the-beast-laura-marling-look-at-yourself-in

this fucking song

put your eyes away
if you can't bear to see
your old lady lay
down next to
the beast

Tremendous album.

It's really good - love the first couple of tracks and The Beast in particular. Not sure as a whole it retains my attention as much as its predecessors (I still can't remember a thing about the third and fourth songs).

Fairly obvious Gillian Welch influence on The Muse, but... weirdly jazzy at the same time? Night After Night is amazing as well, "night after night, day after day, would you watch my body weaken, my mind drift away?" is kind of harrowing coming from a 21 year-old.

sophia has got to be the best song i've heard this year

i didn't like the last record, seems like m&s had too much of an influence on her. Hope this will have less of that.

yeah her new No Age style artwork certainly reflects that

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/pictures/2007/11/06/baggodwinarticle.jpg

saw her perform the single at her album launch tonight..incredible

Salinas is my favorite so far. But the whole thing is great.

I wrote this on it if anyone is interested in reading it. Summary: I like it.

I don't get this chick at all. All I've ever heard are plaudits, but whenever I hear it it just sounds like a passable version of all those '70s English folk singers like Vashti Bunyan, Sandy Denny, Linda Thompson etc. And that's all very well, but I can't help wondering what the point is in bigging this stuff up when there's always been a plethora of music hanging around and largely ignored. Okay, I get it, it's because it's current and those people are old hags now... Still, I think I'd

woops... Still, I think I'd prefer to check out those earlier artists than this somehow.

Those Beast lyrics above have parallels with an Austra cut:

The morning that I was born again,
I was made into a beast.
Am I free now, am I at peace?
Is that the ground below me, or your feet?

The morning I saw your face again,
I was made into a beast.
Am I free now, am I at peace?
Is that the ground below me, or your feet?

And I'll break my head over you this way!

re: above - I'm prob being a bit unfair comparing her dreckly to the '70s folk brigade - there's probably more to it than this.

New one is heavier on the Joni Mitchell than any of those other folks afaict.

I know what you're saying though, and I'm not sure why she gets a pass on that on ILX whereas someone like Fleet Foxes seem to get nothing but scorn.

Listening to Sophia for the first time, I started off thinking "So this is like Adele for hipsters?" and then halfway through it turned into the Kooks.

I'm not averse to this kind of thing in principle though, I'll check out the album at some point.

Her weak r's are somewhat painful to listen to when you start noticing them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdkjGonLteE

e.g. check out the first couple of lines on this

She's cuet, her songs are good, those other people are old or dead.

DL's initial argument could be applied to pretty much anything, though. "Wild Beasts is just a passable version of those 80s English sophistipop bands like Talk Talk, I know they're old and not made a record in 20 years, but why not listen to them?"

I don't buy that in the case of Wild Beasts. The lyrical content and their delivery too is totally different to Mark Hollis and they're very much Wild Beasts own thing. Laura Marling seems a little more generic imo.

Maybe she is if you really know that folk scene; a lot of people (me included) don't though; I've got a couple of Joni Mitchell albums, quite like them, but this affects me more, has the thrill of being new and contemporary, and that counts for a lot.

Listening to the album on Spotify now, I dig this quite a bit..."Salinas", "The Beast" and "Night After Night" are much better than "Sophia" for starters. The stomping banjo workouts do a lot less for me.

izza bit mumfordy innit

i don't even mean that, i just wanted to get someone to yell at me on the internet

She's had a bit of Mumford in her in the past but less so now.

All I've ever heard are plaudits, but whenever I hear it it just sounds like a passable version of all those '70s English folk singers like Vashti Bunyan, Sandy Denny, Linda Thompson etc. And that's all very well, but I can't help wondering what the point is in bigging this stuff up when there's always been a plethora of music hanging around and largely ignored.

I see the sense of applying this argument to bleeding-edge dance music but it feels like a ridiculous line to take with what is essentially folk music.

Also we did this exact same argument on the last thread.

i wasn't here. can't we do it again? please please?

Maybe this is so - I understand, it's new music and it's folk music and why not? Pleasantly familiar maybe? Or new and thrilling to those not so au fait with the old garde? Fair dos - I get why people wanna hear it - same as Mumford or Adele or what have you. But I couldn't help being disappointed, after having read nothing but gushing praise for her work, that it sounds so, well, derivative of what's gone before. And yes, you can use that "it's folk music, not dance" argument - but the people who seem to be repping for this wouldn't have been seen dead listening to Animal Collective, Devendra, Espers, Dirty Projectors or any of the freak-folk crowd who have been experimenting and pushing forward that form.

It's because this music has nothing at all to do with Animal Collective or Dirty Projectors.

kmt animal collective are making humanity regress back to a state of idiocy - sorry "childlike wonderment" - more like

i don't think i've ever seen anyone express their opinion on laura marling in the form "laura marling is really good because ________"

i'm not at all convinced she sounds like 70s britfolk, though the track i just listened to does sound a lot like she'd been listening to 70s joni mitchell and either consciously or not imitated her phrasing: otoh, her phrasing is the best and most eminently borrowable thing about mitchell, maybe, so borrowing it seems like a good idea

She's had a bit of Mumford in her in the past but less so now.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 14 September 2011 12:43 (1 hour ago)

It's because this music has nothing at all to do with Animal Collective or Dirty Projectors.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, 14 September 2011 15:01 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

Both are modern (and different) takes on the folk sound. Animal Collective were instrumental in reviving Vashti Bunyan's career on their Prospect Hummer EP.

laura marling sounds nothing like vashti bunyan to me, and at this stage of her career she comes across more like a highly individual confessional singer-songwriter in the lineage of tori amso or pj harvey than a folk artist per se

I'll give the new album a listen then, but what I've heard so far struck me as extreme revivalism, and not that moving/interesting. I understand these things take a bit of time and attention.

she doesn't cleave to any particular style on the new album? and the point seems to be her words and songwriting rather than whatever "genre" she's operating in at any given point, which ranges from jazz to harvey-esque rock to straight-up folk

Yeah I would agree with that and think we should concentrate on the record rather than following this death spiral into inanity any further.

there's a crucial difference to the last death spiral but otherwise yeah.

I tend to think modern stuff doesn't take enough cues from antiquarian folk but if I'm honest with myself I actually want more Sally Oldfield than insert credible folk singer. (Vashti is like the credible folk singer who is secretly Sally Oldfield avant la lettre)

Laura reminds me heavily of Veda Hille (much more so than any old folk) which is a good thing obv.

i only tried to listen to vashti bunyan once, years ago, and i really really did not feel it

eh, sallyangie was, what, 1968 - ?

i kind of want to come into all new ilm threads and say 'yes, but why would we listen to and talk about this record when other records exist'

i think the vashti bunyan record works a lot better if you are feeling a bit melancholy about past decisions whilst simultaneously treading through autumn leaves

like it captures a particular mood incredibly well, so much so that it can be taken as an artifact devoid of any greater identification or engagement with the folk idiom -- whereas smth like 'no roses' is way closer to being The Great British Folk Revival Album

god, "the beast" is like "troy (pt. II)"

never much went back to this (my first listen of marling) after loving the last one. going back now, it seems way less generic than it did at first blush.

laura marling makes me feel like i haven't lived : / but like in a noble way