LAURA MARLING

Patterns In Repeat (Chrysalis/Partisan)

Tonally similar to 2020’s Song For Our Daughter, but with a more sentimental, cosy feel, Laura Marling’s eighth album Patterns In Repeat is something of a masterpiece. Marling’s actual daughter, born in 2023, was by her side for much of its recording, and as a result, the intimacy between mother and baby becomes a palpable presence in the music, to particularly magical effect on Lullaby.

Two tracks are also written with help from other family members. And it’s easy to imagine that No One’s Going To Love You Like I Can is being sung at a piano passed down from generations. Stories and anecdotes are told, with cinematic intensity, through orchestral strings and fluid, surprising chord progressions, with a break in the middle for the swirling, mythical organs of the Interlude (Time Passages) – singular but not out of place in an album which celebrates the wonder of (extra)ordinary things. 

words ROSANNA LEWIS