On Laura Marling’s well-deservedly acclaimed last album, Song for Our Daughter (2020), she achieved a supreme feat: creating an intensely moving body of work centered around an imaginary child. achieved. Over the next four years, she actually became a mother, and the result is Patterns in Repeat, a tapestry of love, lineage, and the inseparable connection between parent and child. Marling, who has released eight albums, has always mined emotional depths using the simplest of tools: an acoustic guitar and her singular voice, but here her signature understatement is heightened even further. It is being There are no drums on this record at all. Instead, each track is covered with a rich band of strings, and additional decorations are considered not to meet the requirements. In this way, “Pattern in Repeat” is both surprisingly intimate and endearingly raw. Recorded with her children in Marling’s home studio, the piece is imprinted throughout the finished product with aural traces of the household (like a baby’s purr or a dog’s collar shaking); It permanently proves the background of its creation.
Parental love is a clear and unambiguous line – opener ‘Child of Mine’ is the purest distillation of such, a promise made, a vow made: ‘Last night, You started crying in your sleep / But I can’t protect you there.” I’ll keep trying / Sometimes you’ll go places I can’t go / But I can’t protect you there. I talked to the angels who gave me. ” But around this central spool are wound the threads of a myriad of other emotions that parenthood evokes. “Looking Back” (written by Marling’s own father when he was in his twenties) and the incredibly moving “Your Girl” (answering the call of ABBA’s “Slippin’ Through My Fingers” Both of these songs speak of a new, sharp inner voice. Perception of the passage of time. The centerpiece, “The Shadows,” is a meditation on how the beginning of one chapter necessitates the end of another. Meanwhile, the twins “Patterns” and “Patterns in Repeat” see her examine her own childhood through a different, more empathetic perspective, as she gains a deeper understanding of her parents’ actions and decisions. It is depicted.
“I want you to know that I gave it up willingly/Nothing was lost in bringing you to me,” Marling sings on the final track of the title. Sing quietly. Before giving birth, she said, she faced an internal question about whether motherhood would dilute or eliminate her artistry. “Pattern in repeat” is a clever and definitive answer.
