Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know

27 September 2011

Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know

Laura Marling (facebook/twitter) left herself with a difficult task to follow up the runaway critical and commercial success that was her debut I Speak Because I Can, but you wouldn’t know that upon hearing A Creature I Don’t Know. Even at 21 it seems she can brush off the weight of expectation with just pure talent – something she showed off in abundance at her intimate launch party at The Crypts at Marylebone One a couple of weeks ago.

The album is simple, stark even in places, as it ducks and dives through elements of blues to traditional folk – but each song sounds complete. There is no unnecessary over-production that has blemished many a pop-record, it is just her and her band. There is real beauty in the simplicity in songs such as Night After Night that are just Marling and her guitar – slow, soft, and emotive.

This album does not follow in the footsteps of the various faux-folk or pop-folk albums we’ve seen in recent years. Rest In Bed is Marling opening her hymn book of simple celtic folk traditions, it isn’t nostalgic so much as medieval in tone – almost tribal but breathtaking in its crescendos.

My favourite on the album, however, is when Marling demonstrates her ability to turn her hand to sounds a little less subtle on The Beast. It’s aggressive, electric, and should be well out of Marling’s comfort zone, but she steps out from the shadows fighting.

The whole album is Marling stepping away from the easy soft melodies on which she built her debut, and instead embracing her influences from both home and abroad, of folk and bluegrass, of this century and past. It is a statement of her musical credibility, setting herself a long way ahead of the pack.

A Creature I Don’t Know is out now on Virgin Records.

[BUY] Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know on VINYL @ Rough Trade
[BUY] Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know on CD @ Rough Trade | Amazon
[BUY] Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know on MP3 @ Amazon | iTunes

Laura Marling – Sophia by ListenBeforeYouBuy
Laura Marling – Rest In the Bed (on WNYC’s Spinning On Air)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHYwcz5aDmI

Surkin – Ultralight EP

By: Tim

26 September 2011

In: News & Leaks

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Surkin - Ultralight EP

Surkin (Twitter/SoundCloud), who’s French electro vibes we’ve been setting our groove for a good few years now, has a new album coming out on Marble in November – but to get everyone suitably excited we’ve first got his Ultralight EP out today.

Ultralight itself is a wonderful piece of classic French house, centred on that disco piano line and reverbed vocal line. Orbital Motorway, however, is quite a different beast with darker chaotic crescendos of beeps and squeaks hypnotising you as it builds the tension.

[BUY] Surkin – Ultralight EP @ AmazonMP3 | Beatport | iTunes

Surkin – Ultra Light (MRBL009) by Marble Music
Surkin – Orbital Motorway (MRBL009) by Marble Music
Surkin – Orbital Motorway (Voodoo Mix) (MRBL009) by Marble Music

Cosmo Jarvis – Is The World Strange Or Am I Strange?

By: Tim

26 September 2011

In: News & Leaks, Reviews

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Cosmo Jarvis - Is The World Or Am I Strange Or Am I Strange

Cosmo Jarvis (facebook/twitter) is somewhat of an odd character. We had the joy of having his energetic and musically experimental set as part of our showcase in Dingwalls back in May, and now he’s followed up the wonderful Sure As Hell Not Jesus EP with a full length in Is The World Strange Or Am I Strange.

My favourites from his Jesus EP have made the moves onto the EP – Gay Pirates is an amusing cheery sing-a-long sea-shanty, and Sure As Hell Not Jesus is still on the money with its pop-swagger and strut.

The new material is more of a mixed bag – always musically interesting and provocative, but it doesn’t always quite come off. The slap-bass and funk rhythm of Dave’s House gets your foot tapping from the off and reminds me a little of The Cat Empire – never a bad thing, but the pseudo rap stylings of the title track don’t work as well. Indeed, experimentation is probably the best way to describe the album in general – it never lets up cutting a new path between otherwise disparate genres.

She Doesn’t Mind is probably my favourite of the new additions – almost ska in feel and rhythm, but Cosmo as ever adds his own lyrical ingenuity explaining to his parents the perfection of his latest girlfriend “Mum and Dad – she’s curing cancer” amongst her other attributes, but its clear that her appreciation of him is all that he really acres about. That “she doesn’t mind the…”, that she loves him for what he is the only real factor.

My favourite track from the EP, What’s Wrong With Betty, closes the album, but this time in its full 10+ minute form. In many ways, this track sums up the whole record – always musically diverse and inventive, and lyrically seductive – and at times rolled together into pop perfection, but at others baring the clash of sounds a little too starkly.

[BUY] Cosmo Jarvis – Is The World Strange… on CD (Amazon) or iTunes

Gay Pirates by CosmoJarvis
Cosmo Jarvis – Sure As Hell Not Jesus by Two Tap Digital
Betty Part I by CosmoJarvis