Estelle Clifford: Laura Marling - Patterns In Repeat

Returning to the industry after four years, Grammy nominee Laura Marling has released her eighth studio album ‘Patterns in Repeat’. 

The album comes after the birth of Marling’s daughter, an 11 track work exploring motherhood and the circle of life. 

Estelle Clifford joined Jack Tame to give her thoughts on this new release from the celebrated folk musician. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
At Me.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Got myself for a but I could break it. My
purk is still strong circn making.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Plus you.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
So who would bush to child? Child? That is Child
of Mine by Laura Marling. Beautiful voice, Isn't it just incredible?
She's got a brand new album called Patterns in Repeat,
and Estelle Clifford, our music reviewer, has been listening Kyoda.

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Kyoda whatever. What a beautiful album. That song their Child
of Mine is how the album opens. It's actually the
first song Laura wrote after becoming a month and I
think she's really tried to think about bridging the gap
before life, before she was a mum and then what
life is after that and the ever evolving home life

(01:14):
and mixing in the art at the same time. And
I just I love this album. It's a really good
taste of that song there of how the whole album is.
These really beautiful harmonies and melodies that you feel like
quite quickly you're already singing along with it and feeling
like you belong with the song, which I think is
a really beautiful indie folk skill to have with songwriting

(01:38):
and you really fall into her lyrics and you fall
into her voice. This album has no percussion, so it
really yeah, it really is just relying on the guitar
and then there's harmonies. But there's also some songs that
just have beautiful wind instruments, like bringing in a basy
tone with an obo and sounds like that that you

(02:00):
don't actually hear all that often, but it just really
beautifully goes with her voice. She recorded this in her
home studio, surrounded by everything you do when you're juggling
creativity and far no life, and you actually get that.
At the start of Child of Mine, you hear her
chattering with her partner and her producer. There's like baby
gurgles in the background, and then the guitar strums and

(02:22):
she emerges into what it is that she's doing. So
it's very angelic and wistful at times, but not in
a like like you actually stay very tuned into it,
do you know what I mean? Like she doesn't lose
you along the way. I'm not always a big fan
of interludes in an album, but she has one halfway
through end in brackets, it says interlude time passages and

(02:43):
oh my gosh, the montage of instruments and these really
hypnotic rhythms. What a really cool way to give us
a music that does show you how time progresses and
moves on. I can't explain. You have to go and
listen to it. It's right in the middle of the album,
and yeah, it's just it's a really really clever thing.
I think there's lots to love and this album is

(03:04):
very intricate production, and again, she never ever pushes anything,
so there's nothing about her voice that you're like, you're
waiting to go to these crescendos or anything like that.
It just kind of I don't think spew is the
right word, like spews out of you like it. It
just comes out of her in this really beautiful, cruisy, authentic,

(03:25):
quite personal way. There's a song called Caroline, and it's
it's like being right there in the songwriting process where
actually some of the words are like and then she
says something like blah blah blah, like she's just trying
to fill the space, but she's just left it as
the song, which I guess is also what it's like
when you're trying to juggle family life and all the

(03:46):
rest of it. Sometimes things don't get finished. So portraying
that in a beautiful song, I think it's really clear.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
I love this.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
On her Instagram when the album came out, she said,
I hope of nothing else. This album serves to represent
the possibility that the Pram in the hallway is not,
as it turns out, the enemy of art quite profound, right,
But don't take that too heavily. Like the album is
still light and beautiful and pretty and very clever musically,

(04:17):
but also with her really beautiful lyrics about what life is.
She doesn't just sit with the whole just becoming a
new parent, but there's real beauty in what that means
and how that can change your life and what it
means to her as an artist. I think it's really beautiful.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's a great listen, sounds fantastic. Okay, so what do.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
You give it?

Speaker 4 (04:35):
I'm just going to go out there and give it
a ten out of ten deck WHOA. Yeah, I've really
enjoyed this album, and the more I listen, the more
I really feel quite in tune with this album. And
I think a lot of people, yeah, there's there's just
a lot of beauty in it, and I think there's yeah,
people should listen to it.

Speaker 3 (04:51):
Okay, so I haven't listened to the album yet, but
one of the extremely rare occasions when I feel like
I was into this before it was cool because I
was a Laura Marling fan from back when she released
I Speak because I can in.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
So I've been on the Laura Marling train for a
long time. But she's a real like Muso's Muso looking
forward to this.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
She's clever and I'm going to give it to you.
I think you've known her for a lot longer than
I have, and I've had to delve back some of
her back albums.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
So go ye, there you go, there you go.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, look play it when you can stop stop clock
is right twice a day, you know. Laura Marlin's new
album is Patterns and Repeat ten out of Tennistale Rickins,
It's well, thank you so much to Stale.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
We will catch you again very soon.

Speaker 1 (05:37):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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