Laura Marling

Semper Femina

Largely written on her US tour in support of 2015’s Short Movie. Billed as an acute exploration of femininity/female relationships, Laura Marling’s sixth album takes its name – which translates as “always a woman” – from Virgil’s The Aeneid, part of which the Berkshire-born singer-songwriter has tattooed on her leg. Big on strings, picked acoustic guitars and vintage-sounding electric guitar tones, the record’s nine songs are exquisitely performed, while rising producer de nos jours Blake Mills (Alabama Shakes; Jim James) shines again, conjuring snare sounds like horses breathing (Wildfire), and making a bass-guitar-led texture-fest of Soothing, the album’s sultry, early Kate Bush-like opener. In the dense press release accompanying Semper Femina, Marling asserts the work grew out of “a masculine time” in her life, and some might find the work’s almost wilful-seeming opacity and slight whiff of academia offputting. Judged on purely musical terms, however, it’s a thing of great beauty.