Top 10 of 2010 – No. 7
Music — By Andrew Evans on 13/12/10
No. 7: Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
It has become a cliché to bring up how young Laura Marling is when discussing the merits of her music, however it is impossible to resist. That I Speak Because I Can – an album of outstanding maturity, depth and emotional know-how – was released shortly after her 20th birthday is incredible.
On the ode to the homeland Goodbye England (Covered in Snow) she sounds more than double her age, and could easily be looking back over a life of lost love, that is until she drops the line ‘And I’m clearing all my crap out of my room’ and you remember that she could easily still be living with her parents.
Guided by the ever wonderful Ethan Johns, this is an album that cements Marling as the most interesting of the London folk pack. Her boyfriend Mr Mumford may be stealing the chart positions and penning the festival anthems, but it is Marling that is slowly building a legion of true die-hard fans with her world-weary caution and understated quarter life crises laments. It’s not that Marling sounds unhappy, however it certainly seems that her young shoulders carry more of a load than those of her contemporaries.
Nothing short of a truly breathtaking album.
Just one?
Laura Marling – Rambling Man (right click)
Buy I Speak Because I Can here
1 Comment
Oh man do I love this album and Laura Marling in general. I felt lucky to see her in a tiny venue in my town this summer. (Followed a couple of weeks later by seeing Mumford & Sons in the same venue – I’ll never see them in a place that small again, that’s for sure.) I will seek her out whenever she plays near me, and will get her albums. I love her voice and her musical sensibilities.