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Laura Marling: Patterns in Repeat review – a tender love letter to motherhood

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Laura Marling |Photograph: Tamsin Topolski

Domestic contentment radiates through the singer-songwriter’s eighth album celebrating the circle of life

By Lisa Wright

Patterns in Repeat is not the first time Laura Marling has written music for her child, but it is the first time she’s done so as a mother. 2020’s Song for Our Daughter was directed at an idea, and as such rippled with possibility. Its successor is a far more grounded thing, recorded in snatched half hours and imbued with considered, lived experience.

From the opening moments of Child of Mine, which begin with the domestic sounds of the musician setting up as her daughter burbles in the background, Marling invites us into a world that is gentle and nurturing. There are no drums. Most tracks are acoustically plucked, with minimal backing. Everything is centred around the sort of meditative, richly felt sentiment that’s almost physically tangible.

Patterns gazes warmly back at the generations of women before her, towards the next that she herself has borne; Looking Back is a peaceful acceptance of what the end of life might look like; Lullaby, meanwhile, is exactly that – a simple sleep song, sung to her child. Patterns in Repeat considers weighty topics – heritage, lineage and what we pass down – and strips them down to small understandings and wisdoms. It’s an extraordinarily tender accomplishment.

 
Source: Laura Marling: Patterns in Repeat review – a tender love letter to motherhood | Laura Marling | The Guardian

Enchanting Acoustic Chamber-Folk by Irish Songwriter Anna Mieke

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Irish multi-instrumentalist Anna Mieke’s songs conjure expansive places and moving through those places- touching on death, dreaming, memory, and family. She and her band play in-studio.

The Irish singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Anna Mieke spent much of her youth traveling the world – from Spain to Bangladesh, Bulgaria to New Zealand.  Her songs can conjure an expansive sense of place, and of moving through those places – touching on change, age, death, dreaming, memory, family, and perhaps an alternate reality on her latest album Theatre.

Anna Mieke’s enveloping acoustic chamber-folk can start with her borrowed 1936 Epiphone guitar, and may also involve improvisation with her core band. She’s also a bouzouki player, pianist, and a cellist who played with HEX, a Cork-based experimental outfit, and was a vocalist with the singing group, Rufous Nightjar. She’s collaborated with Irish artists Crash Ensemble, Adrian Crowley, and Linda Buckley and with New York-based artists Charlotte Greve, Grey McMurray, and Anna Roberts Gevalt; in March, Mieke will play shows with Iron & Wine.

Anna Mieke and her band stopped by on their current tour to play these recent songs, in-studio.Set list: “Seraphim”, “Twin”, “Coralline”

Watch “Twin”:

Watch “Coralline”:

Source: Enchanting Acoustic Chamber-Folk by Irish Songwriter Anna Mieke | Soundcheck | New Sounds

‘Geranium’ by Aoife Nessa Frances

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Frances grew up steeped in the arts, the daughter of a fiddle-player father and alt-health therapist mother (her aunt is singer and actress Flo McSweeney). Her own music beguilingly splices minimalism and alternative pop. Released in January, debut LP Land of No Junction is a beguiling, mysterious calling card steeped in Cian Nugent’s hazy guitars. No wonder Charlatans leader Tim Burgess was eager to sign the Dubliner to his label (alas, he was too late and she was already committed elsewhere).

Irish Times