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Beiträge
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fuck, habs zu spät gesehen und nur die letzten 2 Lieder mitbekommen.
#schnüff#
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Highlights von Rolling-Stone.deTaylor Swift vs. Kanye West: Legendäres Bitch-Telefonat geleakt
Earth Day: 16 Musiker(innen) und Bands, die für Klimaschutz kämpfen
„Seventeen Seconds“ von The Cure: Teenage Angst für alle
Huey Lewis im Interview: „Die Mundharmonika ist die Antithese zum Techno“
Xavier Naidoo: Das „Ich bin Rassist“-Interview in voller Länge
„Westworld“-Schlusskritik: Tschüss, bin wohl zu blöd für die Serie
Werbungwird ja archiviert… trotzdem toll, es live gesehen zu haben. :liebe:
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Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)noch ein exzellenter Artikel:
From The Sunday Times
March 30, 2008
Laura Marling, 2008’s true musical talentLaura Marling’s shyness is part and parcel of her precocious inner drive
Dan Cairns
Of all the mental images you carry away with you after seeing Laura Marling perform live, the most telling are these: of an audience leaning in as one, heads tilted, ears cocked, hanging not just on each note and word, but on every nuance; and of a singer so shy, so fixed in the moment, that her eyes are cast down, wearing a look of awkwardness last seen when Ted squirmed beneath Lord Ralph’s fumbling forays in The Fast Show. So, not a natural performer, you would think. Except that, of all the artists I saw at the South by Southwest festival in Texas earlier this month, Marling was far and away the most powerful. People floated out of her shows with expressions of rapture on their faces.
We live in instant times and expect instant results – a time when Delia Smith salivates over quick-to-cook frozen mash; when the unknown Leon Jackson spouts ready tears on The X Factor and, now apparently “known”, goes straight in at No 1 in the singles chart. Our willingness to be baffled by, to explore and work hard at understanding an art form seems to be dying. Duffy’s album, Rockferry, is No 1; Laura Marling’s debut, Alas, I Cannot Swim, is not. Only one of these is a great record. Ready answers – the instant cash prizes of forensic lyric-sifting – are not, however, Alas, I Cannot Swim’s thing. Nor do they exactly flow from the mouth of its writer in conversation.
Sitting in the shade on a 90-degree Texan day, shortly after holding another crowd spellbound with her pinpoint modern folk songs, Marling parries and mumbles, her few attempts at candid, incautious explanation preceded by a strange, shy gurgle or a wry private laugh, after which the drawbridge is again raised. The acclaim that greeted the release of her album, just days after the Berkshire-born singer’s 18th birthday in February, was dominated by a single phrase, or variants of it: the achievement was extraordinary, fans enthused, in “one so young”. Never mind that Paul Weller wrote All Mod Cons when he was just 20, or that Kate Bush came up with most of The Kick Inside as a teenager.
Certainly, Marling’s air of seriousness sets her apart – but more from other musicians than from teenagers. Some have detected in her a slightly standoffish demean-our, a complaint often made about artists who are unwilling to splurge and prefer instead to put their music out there and leave it at that. Others have described her album – which addresses scarcely well-visited pop subjects such as depression, death, religion, infidelity, selfishness and solitude – as bleak. Yet Alas, I Cannot Swim strikes me as redemptive, in that, by confronting these issues, Marling sounds empowered, not brought low. She has the confidence to realise she hasn’t worked it all out, a quality that perhaps doesmake her unusual for her age.Ask her what she makes of descriptions such as “bleak” and “standoffish” and, after a strangled laugh, Marling says: “I wouldn’t be upset by that. Because I think, ‘Who cares? Who cares about that?’ I think having a persona as an artist is important. But you shouldn’t try to mask yourself too much, because you shouldn’t care about it too much.” She pauses, which she does a lot, often for long enough to make you conclude she has stopped talking. “On the same level, you can’t give away too much. You’ve just got to be honest. That’s all you can do; because, if you’re not, people have a reason to pick up on, you know, bad stuff.” I thinkwhat she means by this is our habit of projecting meanings onto the less forthcoming type of performer. “I’m quite tough when I need to be,” she continues. “If you’re not going to be tough, then you’re going to feel, ‘What am I doing?’ So, yes, a bit of the cold shoulder, and politeness, and all will be fine.” She laughs quietly to herself.
Later, she owns up to occasional fretting about how her album is perceived: “I have worries about what people will think of it. The obvious ones are ‘Laura Marling sells out’ [after some agonising, she signed to a major label last year] and ‘Laura Marling sounds like Kate Nash’ [she doesn’t, at all]. When I think about music, it’s about community and communication. If you’re not touching a point in someone that affects them, then I kind of think that, for my type of music, it’s pointless. I don’t write songs to try to touch people, but, because they are honest, I expect them to. If somebody said, ‘This album has absolutely no effect on me’, that would be…” – longpause – “bad.”
In any number of other artists, such bashfulness would make me want to take a blowtorch to their CD. Marling’s shyness, though, comes across not as attention-seeking, but as the outer skin of an inner being far too busy to have time for niceties or to work out a way of explaining what’s going on. During a discussion about how being articulate can lead to people assuming you’re equipped with confidence and clarity, the singer says: “People who are good with words are forever searching for the right way to express themselves, and that’s why they have no clarity.” It’s one of the best explanations I’ve heard of why so many writers are messed up behind their immaculate verbal facades/smokescreens. Marling’s facade, however, is far from immaculate. And so we turn to the songs. Which is how, of course, she would prefer it.
Alas, I Cannot Swim was recorded with a raggle-taggle of musicians she met when she moved to London, having left school at 16. These include Charlie Fink, whose band, Noah and the Whale, Marling was until recently a member of. Fink was also the producer, and the real guile of the album is that, by ornamenting the words and melodies so economically and subtly, it attunes your ear to listening in the same way. Songs such as Old Stone, Your Only Doll and Night Terror ensnare you before Marling has crept up to the microphone and sung, in her curiously noncommittal voice, lyrics whose startling imagery and honesty pin you to your seat. Weaving around these are piano, guitar, accordion, french horn, trumpet, brushed percussion and violin.
The last is played by the self-styled Tom Fiddle, of whom Marling says: “There’s something about him that makes everyone smile, I think. He’s the shyest person, but when he plays, he’s set free. He’s incredibly passionate.” Is there something unintentionally (self-)revealing about that remark?
I ask her if she is able to turn her head off, as it were. She is aware, she says, of the old writers’ trap of diarising your problems away and believing you have then dealt with them. It’s not one she intends to fall into. The strangest answer she gives comes when I inquire if she is good at detaching herself from that endless cycle of self-exploration. “I guess so,” she says, “given that I can do what I do. I guess I must be.” Though I sort of know what she means, it’s an answer that’s still resonating.
“My manic and I,” Marling sings on the song of the same name, “have no plans to move on/But birds are singing to calm us down.” This sense of restlessness, torment and constant questing thrums throughout the album. The words “belief” and “believe” keep cropping up. “I don’t have a religious family,” she says, when I ask about this (she is the youngest of three daughters), “but I’m quite susceptible to religion. I went to church by myself until I was 12, then I was a Buddhist for four years. And, for some reason, I’ve got three people in my touring band who are religious. I get panic attacks before gigs sometimes, and they’ll come and sit next to me, put their arms around me and say a prayer.”
On cue, the birds in the tree above us burst into song. Beneath them, Laura Marling looks very calm indeed.
Alas, I Cannot Swim is out now on Virgin
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Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)one.be.loBooklet ist ganz nett, außerdem mit den jeweiligen Lyrics. Auch sonst ein sehr gelungenes Album, wobei mir New Romantic schon etwas fehlt.
die jedoch an vielen stellen nicht stimmen (es sei denn die songs klingen auch unterschiedlich auf der booklet-beinhaltenden ausgabe?! ;-))… aber das booklet ist natürlich trotzdem sehr schön (auch wenn ich’s nur in fotokopierter form habe).
seltsam, dass die platte hier so wenig beachtung findet. dabei erinnert „alas i cannot swim“ doch in vielerlei hinsicht an „i’m wide awake it’s morning“ von bright eyes. aber vielleicht sehe ja auch nur ich das so.
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Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)Ich habe das Album ebenfalls sehr lieb gewonnen. Ich hatte es mir runtergeladen, als ich las, dass sie als Support-Act von Adam Green spielt, zu dessen wiener Konzert ich bereits Tickets hatte.
Live waren Laura und Band ebenfalls toll, schade nur, dass sie nur so kurz spielen durften, ich hätte sie noch liebend gerne viel länger gehört.Als ich aus Wien wieder heimkam, habe ich mir dann auch sofort das Album bei amazon.co.uk bestellt :) Ich hoffe es wird das mit Booklet sein.
Gruß
Peter
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aber es ist doch inzwischen ganz offiziell in deutschland erschienen…. wurde es auf dem konzert nicht verkauft?
mit richtiger band ist sie aufgetreten? also nicht nur zu zweit (wie bei dem, auch recht kurzen, paradiso/fabchannel-konzert)? wie lange haben sie denn gespielt?
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Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)Hi firecracker!
Leider konnte man das Album beim Konzert nicht kaufen, nur zwei Singles und T-Shirts. Tja, das fand ich auch traurig, da ich mir das Album gern geholt hätte. Das Konzert war Samstag abends und am Sonntag sind in Österreich die Läden ja alle geschlossen und ich fuhr wieder heim nach Ungarn und bei uns bekommt man sowas regulär im Geschäft eh nicht.
Ja, es war eine ganze Band, Laura und 4 Mannen, wenn ich mich recht erinnern kann. Die haben auch sehr gut musiziert und tolle Backings gesungen :)
Anfang nächster Woche sollte das Paket bei mir ankommen und ich gebe dann Bescheid um welche Version es sich handelt. Ich hoffe es ist die mit Pappschuber, das gefällt mir nämlich besser wie die üblichen Jewel-Cases, da es so ähnlich wie ein kleines Buch ausschaut.
Gruß
Peter
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also nicht sehr geschäftstüchtig…
das digipack gibt’s aber meines wissens nach nur ohne booklet. ist tatsächlich schöner als die jewel case version.. nur eben schade, dass das booklet nur letztgenannterer beiliegt. oder du belehrst uns demnächst eines besseren… drück dir auf alle fälle die daumen.
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Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)Anfang September wird nun auch ein Vinyl-Release nachgeschoben, vorerst allerdings wohl nur als wenig günstiger US-Import (nicht unter 25 Euronen).
Edit: Zum Album demnächst mehr.
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Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to exit the donut!Sehr sehr schöne Platte, hält, was EPs und Singles versprochen haben. Diese Eigenständigkeit, Stilsicherheit und Klasse einer 18-jährigen (und als die beiden EPs rauskamen, war sie erst 17!) ist verblüffend. Die Vergleiche mit Joni Mitchell halte ich durchaus für angebracht.
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God told me to do it.zum zeitpunt der albumaufnahmen war sie auch noch 17…
bei derartigen musikalischen vorlieben ist’s allerdings wenig verwunderlich, dass sie nicht das bild eines typischen teenagers (whatever that means) abgibt.sympathischerweise klingt sie weitaus hoffnungsfroher als joni mitchell. empfinde ich zumindest so.
immer noch ein wundervolles, gerne gehörtes album (und das am liebsten gehörte des vergangenen jahres).
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Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)Wow! Ich hatte ein paar Vorurteile, aber ich bin ziemlich begeistert. Jaja, ich weiß, bin mal wieder spät dran… 18 ist die Dame? Nochmal wow!
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Is this my life? Or am I just breathing underwater?19 schon mittlerweile.
und laut myspace gerade im studio um das zweite album aufzunehmen… wird ja auch mal zeit! auch wenn ich mir „alas“ immer noch nicht übergehört habe.--
Dirty, dirty feet from the concert in the grass / I wanted to believe that freedom there could last (Willy Mason)firecrackerauch wenn ich mir „alas“ immer noch nicht übergehört habe.
Geht mir auch so; ich habe es bestimmt nicht ganz so oft gehört wie du (dreistellige Summe?
), aber doch mindestens einmal wöchentlich!Ich wäre jetzt übrigens bereit für den angebotenen „Marling-abseits-der-offiziellen-Veröffentlichungen“-Lehrgang, wenn du noch magst!
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the pulse of the snow was the pulse of diamonds and you wear it in your hair like a constellation19. Okay. Mir machen solche Frauen ja ein bisschen Angst. Man muss bei Laura, ganz ohne pathetisch sein zu wollen, doch das Wort „Genie“ auspacken, oder? Was machst Du eigentlich, wenn das Deine Freundin ist? Um es anders zu sagen: Woher nimmt ein 17-18-jähriges Mädel aus Hampshire diese Wahnsinns-Inspiration? Ich frage mich das ganz ernsthaft. Ich kann da nur in die Knie gehen. Bin ein bisschen verliebt.
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Is this my life? Or am I just breathing underwater?
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