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January 16, 2008 1:04 pm
Although it was entirely predictable that the Gen Y baby boomlet would kick up its share of preternatural music talents—MySpace seems to churn out a teen prodigy every few weeks—it’s nonetheless a shock to behold Laura Marling. Pale, wan, English, and 17 years old, Marling outdoes the acclaim that the British music press has already heaped upon her first two EPs, “London Town” and “My Manic and I,” and does so mostly by being everything the acclaim has promised (which is to say that the Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell comparisons are not entirely out of line). Devendra Banhart has passed Marling the nouveau folk baton, inviting her to open his recent English and European dates. But watching Marling play her virgin stateside gig last night in the East Village—a sold-out show that saw would-be attendees straining at the door to hear a few leaked chords—it’s clear why PJ Harvey is the comparison that sticks. Marling wasn’t even born back when Polly Jean was recording her volcanic debut demos, and she has nothing of her lusty rage, but the two artists work from the same place, drawing on a primitive vulnerability and laying it shatteringly bare in song. Marling’s ghostly folk, in fact, takes up where Harvey left off on her last album, “White Chalk”—piano-driven, unsettled, unadorned. Her first full-length record is due in the spring, but catch Marling now, while you can see her in the intimate spaces that befit her most: She’s playing three more shows in the New York area this week. Come prepared to be silenced, not only by the music but by the fact that a few years from now, it will be remembered as her juvenilia.
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