Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
Sorry, but this really just isn’t that good. There are some fine moments, but I’m afraid Miss Marling comes across as no more than a sliver better than Fiona Apple, and treading a gratingly familiar path. It’s unfair to imply that the two are equivalent though. By all accounts Apple has grown up somewhat in recent years, so is apparently far less irritating than usual. And Laura Marling is by no means actively annoying, it’s just that there are parts where the music reminds me so strongly of early Fiona Apple stuff that it winds me up almost by proxy (Tap at My Window - grrrr!).
Which is not, funnily enough, to say that they sound overwhelmingly similar. The similarities are more of pace and atmosphere rather than explicitly in the melody or the instrumentation. Marling has written an album of bittersweet, softly emotive folk music that comes squarely from the very middle of sensitive female singer/songwriter territory. Perhaps that’s why I’m not taking to it all that much - it’s just a bit, well, wet. Not emotionally pallid or anything like that, just a bit soggy. You know that particularly irritating vocal tic, the Black Woman’s Wobble, as taken to its teeth-grindingly annoying extreme by Beyonce Knowles? Well the Sensitive Woman’s Wobble is subtly different but I find it equally off-putting.
There is some lovely stuff on this album, so please don’t misunderstand me, we miss one another only by inches, but they are crucial inches. At times her open, honest lyrics and lightness of delivery are just gorgeous. But for the most part I am reminded of being in a Regina Spektor gig with my good friend Morgan: “There’s definitely a high proportion of very sensitive young men here, isn’t there?”
18 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
any pictures of this lady that bart visually recommends??
Sheesh, people.
Here
thanks. sorry - bart is just a bad influence! obviously her music will be judged on quality alone…
Yes. Pish.
Now, now.
She’s a bit better’n a lot of the chicken-headed warblings (the Black Woman’s Wobble? Bloody hell, Toad!) out there on the circuit. I like a handful of her tracks quite a lot, from this album, but my gut tells me (now it’s all calmed down & not emptying on a random basis) there’s too much production on this to level her with the likes of Apple & Amos & Norah Jones & Co.
I’d like to hear a stripped bare, recorded in an outhouse, banjo/6-string effort from her because I think she has the potential of being rather delicious. & I mean that in the songwriting sense, not in the “squatting on the pot” sense.
I’d agree that a less shiny version would be nice. And I too like a (smallish) handful of the tracks on here. But like I said, I don’t think it’s rubbish - I just don’t like it all that much and there are times when it actively grates.
Her voice reminds me of Avril Lavigne’s. But without the sk8ter boi style.
Oh, and Fiona > Norah + Tori + Laura. Don’t you forget it!
Is her new stuff any good, China? I heard she’d calmed down a little from the slightly desperate intellectualism of earlier recordings.
Fiona? I assume not Avril. Well, new is 2005 (already!), but I definitely liked it a lot. She’s not angry and 19 anymore, you know! But I’ve always loved her voice and how lush and elegant her songs are. A lot of people dismiss her for “Criminal” or “Sleep to Dream,” but that was kind of a bitterness phase that faded by the second record. Most of her stuff’s not like that at all, and she’s wonderful with ballads.
I liked Never Is a Promise, but I haven’t heard much since then. The mere title of the Pawn one put me off too much to buy it.
Does Beyonce sing? I hadn’t noticed. Oh, and I believe it’s called “melisma,” not “the Black Woman’s Wobble.” That it has a proper name makes it even more annoying, I find. I’ve been listening as I write and this Laura Marling person is pretty good I think, especially the “Failure” tune. I absolutely agree that she could afford less production (I hate fucking soaring violins almost as much as melisma!), but these two songs are top notch. I never listened to Fiona Apple, so I don’t have that hang up.
I put my favourite two on here, not ones that explained my criticisms. It’s occurred to me that sometimes I should do that actually, but I tend to put my favourites up for now. Something to consider in future, I think.
Melisma my arse.
It’s like in ‘Broken Arrow’ when the man says “I don’t know what’s scarier, losing a nuclear weapon or that it happens so often there’s actually a term for it.”
I actually really like this album…although agree about the over-production. But I am a fan of Fiona Apple, so what do I know? ;o) And I think Regina Spektor is excellent live! I’m clearly a fish out of water here eh? Jolly good fun joining in nevertheless :o)
For the record, I wasn’t visually recommending Laura Marling, I was merely suggesting that I knew people that would pay good money to do something on her.
And at the time, I didn’t realise she was 12.
Still…
Actually I’d agree that she was indeed excellent live, it’s just that I am not a great fan of her music - specifically the yipping and yelping that punctuates it. But she was a superb performer.
I like this album, but maybe that’s just because I’m a sensitive young man
A sensitive and charming young man, Tim, and I’ll punch anyone who says otherwise.