Laura Marling at Her Finest: Patterns In Repeat
We all know the feeling of missing out and when a record makes you feel that, makes you imagine your life in an entirely different way it feels like there’s an element of magic. You have this tangible thing in music, an album that might open your mind to a world you’re not a part of.
For me, that magic is flowing through every second of Laura Marling’s latest offering, her album Patterns In Repeat.
The album starts with a candid recording you can hear the mumble of a conversation with her baby present. You’re invited into this world, you know she’s there with her baby. It feels like you’re intruding on a tender moment, or flashing back through a memory that isn’t yours. Her haunting vocals, ethereal backing vocals and the introduction of strings gives the song a heavenly glow. I know, it sounds a lot, but with talk of angels and the directness of the lyrics, each song on the album has a motherly warmth and tender unconditional love.
The production of No One’s Gonna Love You Like I Can makes you feel like you’re in Laura’s living room, sat watching her play piano. You’re invited into this tender decree to her daughter, it’s the kind of love we all dream of.
The albums not all sweetness, it confronts darker feelings like in Shadows. The lyrics are frank whilst maintaining Laura’s signature vulnerability. The song is heart-breaking, talking of someone who’s left.
“She knows, of course, she knows. And one day she'll tear me apart. This shadow that she leaves on my heart”
It feels like a full considered piece of work. You don’t often find albums that are this cohesive and really take you on a journey from start to interlude to finish. There’s an interlude for crying out loud. Yes, you can listen to a song here and there but to sit and listen to the full album is a joyous experience.
Patterns in Repeat is the penultimate track, harking back to the second on the album, Patterns. It’s smart and feels like true artistry, I had such a grin when the song came around. The perfect way to begin to close the album. As in the album, Laura talks about patterns in repeat, how everything we do is cyclical in some way. It has a knowing.
“I want you to know that I gave it up willingly
Nothing real was lost in the bringing of you to me”
An instrumental version of Lullaby finishes the album. Laura Marling has delivered a record, made in her home studio, that really takes you into her heart and mind as a mother. It conjures images of having that special thing, holding someone you love so dearly and allowing everything else to melt away. It’s beautiful. An album I think will stand the test of time.