Ballroom presented Laura Marling at the Highland Annex for an intimate encounter with a rising star. Willy Mason opened. Marling’s music belongs to the traditions of both British and American folk music. Her fourth album, Once I Was An Eagle, was nominated for the UK’s prestigious Mercury Prize.

Marling’s musical background is well-documented: Her father taught her guitar at a young age, and her early work references English pastoral folk artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s like Pentangle, Fairport Convention or Nick Drake. In 2008 at the age of 18 she released her first album Alas I Cannot Swim, which was quickly recognized as a landmark document of the aforementioned scene. Two more records followed in 2010 and 2011. In the years since her debut her achievements also include the 2011 Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, two Mercury Music Prize nominations and the NME Award for Best Solo Artist.

Though her work is lumped in with folk revivalists Mumford & Sons and Noah and the Whale — two groups with whom she was entangled professionally and socially — Marling’s music stands out for the ways in which it breaks with those traditions. She incorporates an adventurous sonic palette that feels more aligned with the experimental impulses of Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch and Richard Thompson or even to Bob Dylan and Laurel Canyon-era Joni Mitchell, while other critics hear the expansive psychedelia found in Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd’s mellower fare. 

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