Nu-folk’s magisterial star survives the odd misfire
St Giles-in-the Fields, London Laura Marling
Twee. Precocious. Ethereal. Winsome. These are adjectives Laura Marling has no doubt grown to despise. All have been deployed time and time again to describe the 28-year-old singersongwriter, who was at the vanguard of the nu-folk scene more than a decade ago.
So let’s talk about how remarkably consistent she is instead. Last year saw the release of her Grammy Award-nominated sixth album,
Semper Femina (the title echoes a line from Virgil’s Aeneid). Marrying lyrics about femininity with sensual production, it largely dispensed with the filigrees and electronic urgency of 2015’s Short Movie for a more pop-friendly sound. Like all her previous records, it was an outstanding work, grounded in her opaque imagery, gorgeous voice and virtuosic guitar-playing.
But with the skeletal, jazzinflected Soothing, she edged into new territory, its blend of barebones drums, stately double bass and swelling strings giving Marling her most brooding – and beguiling – song to date. That it was absent from Saturday night’s charity gig at St Giles-in-the-fields church was one of only a couple of misfires from a 60-minute acoustic set.
Alone with her guitar, her flowing white shirt matching her complexion, she laid bare her gusty parables about romance, solitude and self-realisation to the 200 fans genuflecting before her.
Drawing mainly from Semper Femina, she opened with Wild Fire, her Hampshire accent drifting into
an American drawl, before weaving through the dreamy waltz of The Valley and the melancholic Next Time, her eyes fixated on the balcony above.
Never particularly at ease in the spotlight – in 2012 she moved to LA and became a yoga instructor to escape her increasing fame – Marling nevertheless exudes a magisterial quality, one that seldom loosens its grip on the audience. Here she was hypnotic, crystallising what we perhaps already knew: that she’s one of England’s finest musical talents.
If eschewing a backing band meant the set lacked variety, it also allowed us to fully appreciate every shade of her sonic palette, particularly during exquisite renditions of 2010 favourites,
Rambling Man and Goodbye England (Covered in Snow).
She’s nominated for Best Female Solo Artist at this week’s Brit Awards. If there’s any justice, she’ll win.
Marling’s set was part of 2018’s War Child Brits Week together with O2, a series of gigs taking place in intimate venues across London