It’s... Joni Mitchell! Plus production! Laura Marling’s a 20-year-old gal out of England with a smoky folky voice. Country(side)-tinged singer-songwriter action, dark and melancholy and at times menacing spare instrumentation, lyrical subject matter of choice hovering somewhere between love of England and plain old heartbreak. Oh, and there’s some Suzanne Vega going on in here. This whole record is ace. A good burn-em-up spit-em-out album for the xmas season.

try: 1, 5, 7
no FCCs

*1. long fade in. ‘starts’ 40 sec in (3:00 from end). devil-themed square dance. banjo, tambourine, boot clicks. oh yeah. this thing cooks.
2. leisurely slide-audible acoustic guitar. upfront joni vox.
3. hella joni. laid back gentle guitar folk. strength-builder acoustic + banjo.
4. soft / gentle / quiet. ~12 sec lead-in. high-reg vox, sparse fingerpicked guitar. lone sad violin. “i have no reason to reason with you.”
*5. busy fingerpicking. plucked violin. swells and gets dark. great irregular vocal cadence. haunty scary hard guitar and tambourine not unlike, holy hell, tso’s carol of the bells.
6. fluttery flute/clarinet and light fingerpicked guitar. gentle powder-snow-on-rooftops song. “it’s good to hear that you believe in love even if said in fear.” dylan, totally.
*7. gloomy acoustic guitar and minor banjo, pedal-on piano. deep dark waltz. gets hard and agitated. builds and ends a rocky storm.
8. melancholy circular fingerpicked guitar and longing despairing lyrics. there’s a thin and sad story spidering through this one. it’s mythic.
9. cute cheerful doubled vox. picks up into a train-track rhythm barn dance... between languorous acapella pauses. fun, folky.
10. minor etudey fingerpicked guitar. slides into a waltzy slow-bang drag. shackle tambourine is involved. a builder.