“Semper Femina” – always female, is the title of British singer/songwriters Laura Marling’s new album. She is currently on tour promoting her new record and will be at First Avenue on 5/5. Tickets are still available HERE
There is a line from Virgil’s epic poem The Aeneid that nearly a decade ago Laura Marling decided to have tattooed on her leg: “Varium et mutabile semper femina” it runs, translating roughly as “A woman is an ever fickle and changeable thing.” Realizing that the line was a little long for the limb, at the very last moment she opted instead for an abbreviation: “Semper femina” she chose: “Always a woman.” It makes a fitting and fascinating title for Marling’s sixth album — an intimate, devoted exploration of femininity and female relationships, and among her finest work to date. Written largely on the tour that followed 2015’s Short Movie and recorded in Los Angeles with production from Blake Mills, it is at once a distinctive and musically compelling collection of songs, run through with Marling’s fierce intelligence; a keen, beautiful and unparalleled take on womanhood.
“I started out writing it as if a man was writing about a woman,” Marling says. “And then I thought it’s not a man, it’s me — I don’t need to pretend it’s a man to justify the intimacy of the way I’m looking and feeling about women. It’s me looking specifically at women and feeling great empathy towards them and by proxy towards myself.”
The songs grew out of what Marling regards as “a masculine time” in her life. “A certain time when I’d sort of gone on this trip of abandoning any sexuality,” she says. “Now in retrospect I was hopped up on the times, but I was living in LA, and LA does have an amazing knack for removing sexuality. I found it quite scary; I was scared of what I perceived to be the disappearance of my feminine side. But it gave me an ability to look at women in a different way and consider how I’d been looked at.”
In retrospect there was a precursor to this strange period of her life — Short Movie had been concerned with the breaking down of the ego, “And then I guess piecing back together an ego you get to see it in all its parts,” she says. “And tied in with this was the magical realism of living in LA.” Having spent several years in Los Angeles, Marling now splits her time between the UK and California. “And LA makes me feel very different to England,” she says. “Now my love affair with LA is at a point where I don’t really leave my house and all my friends are English. It’s a great place to be, but it’s not an enticing fantastical adventure anymore, and I think the election has brought that home.”
Tour Dates:
Apr 27 Wonder Ballroom Portland, OR
Apr 28 The Show Box Seattle, WA
Apr 30 The Fillmore San Francisco, CA
May 02 Mayan Theater Los Angeles, CA
May 05 First Avenue Minneapolis, MN
May 06 Majestic Theater Madison, WI
May 07 Metro Chicago, IL
May 09 MAGIC STICK Detroit, MI
May 10 Danforth Music Hall Toronto, Canada
May 11 Rex theater Pittsburgh, PA
May 13 Corona Theater Montreal, Canada
May 14 Academy of Music Northampton, MA
May 16 Paradise Rock Club Boston, MA
May 19 TLA Philadelphia, PA
May 20 Brooklyn Steel Brooklyn, NY
May 21 9:30 Club Washington, DC
