British folk singer Laura Marling is releasing her latest album Once I Was An Eagle on May 27th overseas and May 28th in North America via Virgin. Listen to a new song “Where Can I Go?” here.
The album was produced by Ethan Johns, who has previously worked with Marling on past recordings as well as Kings of Leon, Tom Jones and Crowded House.
The tracklisting for Once I Was An Eagle is as follows:
01. Take The Night Off
02. I Was An Eagle
03. You Know
04. Breathe
05. Master Hunter
06. Little Love Caster
07. Devil’s Resting Place
08. Interlude
09. Undine
10. Where Can I Go?
11. Once
12. Pray For Me
13. When Were You Happy? (And How Long Has That Been)
14. Love Be Brave
15. Little Bird
16. Saved These Words
Entering the music scene in 2007, she cut her teeth contributing backing vocals on Noah and the Whale’s debut album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down, as well as the Rakes’ song “Suspicious Eyes” and Mystery Jets’ “Young Love”, before venturing on a solo career.
She released her debut ep London Town on WayOutWest Records in 2007, and then a full length Alas, I Cannot Swim in 2008 on Virgin Records. She made her debut network television performances doing “Ghosts” on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and “New Romantics” on Later With Jools Holland. The album was nominated for a Mercury Prize that year.
Marling released 2010’s I Speak Because I Can I Speak Because I Can, which was once again nominated for a Mercury Prize for Album of the Year, as well as RTE Radio 1 Award in 2010. 2011’s A Creature I Don’t Know earned a BBC 2 Folk Awards nomination for “Ramblin Man,” but won a Brit Award for Best British Female Artist and a NME Award for Best Solo Artist. She was once again nominated in 2012 for a Brit Award for Best British Female Artist and a NME Award for Best Solo Artist.
In October 2012 Marling did a short US tour promoting her third album A Creature I Don’t Know, while announcing she was working on her the forthcoming album now knows as Once I Was An Eagle.
In an interview with Mxdwn, she spoke about Once I Was An Eagle and the creative process:
“We’ve done a lot with resonance. I like low resonance; I think that’s interesting, when you can barely hear a tone underneath a tone. And also because there’s a lot to do with characters in this new album, we’ve kind of assigned a sound to each character that reappears throughout the album whenever they’re relevant. Maybe telling people that will kind of ruin it! Maybe the idea is that it should be much more subtle than that.”
She also spoke about what listeners should expect from the new album:
“I think it’s going to be a challenge. I’m really happy with it, I’m proud of it, but I think I can say that it will be a challenge to listen to. It’s the longest one I’ve done. It’s a long album, you’d have to be a committed listener to get through it. But I don’t think it’s bad, it’s just quite long.”