Laura Marling - Once I Was an Eagle

Recommended by Bex:

Once I Was an Eagle was made over 10 days with just a cellist and producer Ethan Johns, on carefully-placed drums, piano, organ. Marling recorded her vocal and guitar parts in a single take each, and in one day, though it somehow sounds even more immediate.

As a lyricist, Laura favours a veiled sort of storytelling, her songs never not deeply felt but always more in the vein of short stories than memoir, and executed so supremely that sussing out the 'real' from the 'unreal' has always seemed beside the point.

At 23, the amount of time Marling had spent on this earth was once relevant because nobody in her peer group was making albums like this. With Eagle, it's because nobody of any age is making albums like this.

I look forward to seeing her - for the fifth time - this month as part of Secret Cinema. Based on a review by Pitchfork.

Marling is the one artist I can, personally, say surpasses herself with each release; considering her superb debut I find this astonishing.