LAURA MARLING
www.lauramarling.com
A little over a year ago, Laura Marling came off the road after touring her hugely successful fourth album Once I Was an Eagle, and immediately set about recording its successor. “I literally rolled out of the van and into the studio — a decision made by my own stubbornness,” she recalls. “And then I just stopped cold turkey.” Marling’s fifth album, Short Movie, is the result of an extended period of stopping and thinking. “I realised that I hadn’t been in a place for longer than two or three weeks since I was 16,” she explains. “I thought ‘I wonder what will happen if I try and root myself somewhere?‘ Look back over the past eight years.”
Shelving the album she had written and begun, she gave herself six months away from anything related to music, to explore and learn new skills, to try other kinds of writing, other ways of thinking. “It was definitely good for me,” she says. “But it was also absolutely horrible and I’ll never do that again.” Uncertain whether she wanted to continue songwriting she had redirected her energy into poetry, only to have her application (under a pseudonym) to study at a writing centre in upstate New York turned down. “I think,” she says, “it was the first time anybody’s ever said no to me.”
SATURDAY 07 FEBRUARY
THEKLA BRISTOL
The Grove, Bristol BS1 4RB
Doors 7:00pm
Ages 14+
Advance tickets available from:
www.alt-tickets.co.uk
www.gigantic.com
Bristol Ticket Shop
0844 871 881
