Human experience is a funny old thing. Well. It is if by ‘funny’ you mean ‘an utterly bewildering, unremitting source of confusion and uncertainty’. Starting to see why they say ‘funny’ now… Let’s say then, that Laura Marling’s new album is all about funny old things.
Marling picks up on that universal principle of songwriting – write what you know, what you feel. She picks up on this and she goes one further, writing songs about what people know and feel…but try to deny. This is, after all, the reason why we come to identify with songs like ‘Sophia’ and not songs like ‘Umber-Umberella’.
Stop right there. For making an album like ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’, Laura Marling certainly deserves more fitting comparisons than a stick figure with a mohawk. Since you must know, her new material is much closer to exploring the dark side of Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’. At times it even feels like a very English counterpoint to ‘Last of the Country Gentlemen’. Still, the comparison only stretches so far. Where Josh T. Pearson went for tender, confessional acoustics, Marling frequently opts for breezy, full-blooded gallops into brutal, self-effacing assertions.
It’s not that she’s proud of her darker side; she just seems readier to face up to it. Wry, mystic lyrics see Marling grappling with the looming, shapeless figure of self-doubt. Sometimes she gets the upper hand, other times we’re left feeling defeated at song’s end, suspended in pitch darkness. Don’t be fooled though; these songs can’t be objectively divided up into ‘happy’ and ‘sad’. Each and every one has the essence of both in abundance. It’s just that there are times, wherever you are in the album, when one feels more real than the other.
That change is seamless, thanks to gloriously vivid instrumentation. Marling favours a nylon-stringed guitar for trickling, buzzing, deeply involved fingerpicked sections; mandolins and banjos wander in and out, lending their bright sounds and summery colours to the mix.
Electric guitar is used sparingly. The dark musings of ‘The Beast’ prompt a growl or two and ‘Salinas’ gives us a taste of fuzz, but ‘Sophia’ is where the ‘leccies really let loose, with some very welcome Byrds-era David Crosby jangle arpeggios. putting the finishing touch on one of the album’s indisputable highlights.
Marling’s band prove a versatile bunch, more than equal to bringing her songs to life. After blending jazzy strings and keys with some lightly dusted drums for opener ‘The Muse’, you almost imagine they’ve played their ace too soon. Then they follow it up with the daydreamish, time-signature-hopping ‘I Was Just A Card’, brimming with vim and vigour and exactly the right kind of light touch to suit the song.
‘Sophia’ is enough reason by itself to go for this album, but it is, admittedly, already available as a single. If you really are one of those picky sorts who like to snatch a listen of an album track before you commit yourself, it’ll be songs like ‘Salinas’ and ‘All My Rage’ that sway you on first listen. Everything else on ‘A Creature I Don’t Know’ will take its hold on you in time, but these two tracks are your quickest fix for Marling’s brand of folky thrills.
‘A Creature I Don’t Know’ throws lyric and melodic surprises at you with every split-second turn of the disc. Like all the best bits of Paul McCartney’s career, this album celebrates wit and wisdom and an uncanny ear for which tunes will stick in your head. It all balances up; Marling finds a solace in heartbreaks and impossibles that might defeat stronger women, and she earns our respect, if not our hard-earned £9.95. Whoa, make that £8.93. Click. Worth it.
(Simon Moore)
