Laura marling patterns in repeat album launch event
Laura Marling
It’s mid-morning on a Sunday, and I find myself outside a red-doored Georgian townhouse in a deserted corner of Central London. Storm Ashley broils and blusters around me - litter and leaves swirl on the pavement, while above, a sullen, slate-grey sky offers a pregnant pause from the torrents of rain that have accompanied the journey so far.
I’m at Sessions Art Club in Farringdon, here to hear the new and currently unreleased eighth studio album from Laura Marling. Over a near two-decade career, Marling has established herself as the doyenne of the English alt-indie scene. Weather like this seems to go hand in glove with the aesthetic of this specific stretch of Dickensian London, and if I had to choose a more fitting musical accompaniment to bring it all to life, I’d be coming up empty.
That’s not to say Laura Marling’s music has ever strayed into the realms of English pastiche. Far from it, in fact. From her meteoric, mercury-nominated 2008 debut ‘Alas, I Cannot Swim’, through six subsequent studio albums, her sound has polished and refined, yet a through-line of deep musicality and creative experimentation has defined every release. Lyrics have become more thoughtful and sardonic, arrangements have been stripped back to near-Spartan essentials. Despite this, each release remains united and made thrillingly unique by her beguiling and gravelly vocal, somehow still seeming like it should emerge from an artist well beyond Marling’s 34 years.
Guests at Sessions Arts Club listening to the Laura Marling ‘Patterns in Repeat’ album
This is the Art Of Slowdown’s second such event. The first, an album listening party to celebrate the release of Adrienne Lenker’s ‘Bright Future’, explored similar themes to this one. It was held in the exact same venue, in fact, and you can read about it in more detail <here>. Today, we’ve been asked to support Partisan & Chrysalis Records with this exclusive brace of events. 120 fans are invited to join us in the elegant top-floor dining room at Sessions Art Club. Each fan attends as the winner of a competition run by leading indie record store chain, Rough Trade. A world-class sound system will be tasked with playback, the record played in full, front to back.
And with the support of The Art Of Slowdown, this would all take place without phones, screens, or laptops. The idea? To create an intentional moment of musical appreciation, reproduced by a stunning sound system in a beautiful location, and to offer committed fans a rare chance to disconnect from electronic devices and fully commit to the moment.
Partisan, Chrysalis & Laura Marling
Emma Snook, Direct of Marketing - Partisan Records
To find out more about how this event came to life, I find a little time to sit down with Partisan Records’ Director of Marketing, Emma Snook. Partisan Records has partnered with the iconic indie label Chrysalis for Laura Marling’s releases since 2020.
Emma has been with Partisan for nearly seven years, starting as a label assistant before reaching her current position as Director of Marketing. Partisan was co-founded by New York-based Tim Putman and Ian Wheeler in 2007. “It’s grown a lot over that time…we’ve now got offices in London, Berlin, New York, and LA as well,” Emma explains. Partisan work from the pleasingly authentic position of putting primary focus on the artist and their creative vision. “It’s always been important that the artist is completely front and centre…that we build trust with the artist and the teams we work with.” This guiding philosophy means Partisan aren’t driven by any particular musical ideology, more a synergy with the artists themselves. “It’s never genre-based…the whole philosophy is working with artists with immediately identifiable voices that work to enhance the human condition, not exploit it.”
“Our goal is changing people’s lives through music…to help them better understand themselves and connect with each other.” A pleasingly lofty ambition, but one glance at the Partisan roster is enough to prove this isn’t mere marketing speak. IDLES, PJ Harvey, Ezra Collective, Cigarettes After Sex, Fela Kuti…all artists with an unmistakable through-line of searing honesty in their songwriting. Seen through this lens, Laura Marling makes a sensible label-mate.
Partnering with Chrysalis on Laura’s releases involves deep connections between the two labels; “It’s a label partnership…we work together very closely across all elements of the campaign,” Emma tells us. This relationship established itself with Song For Our Daughter - Marling’s previous release to this one. That 2020 release marked the relaunch of Chrysalis Records in the UK, and came with widespread acclaim and success - including a Mercury nomination for Marling. I ask Emma - what’s different or challenging about promoting an album this deep into an artist's life cycle.
“I feel like the methods we use tend to be more dependent on the artists themselves rather than where they are in their career. All our artists are so different…the most important thing is them being authentic as that’s what resonates with fans,” Emma reveals. “...one example might be that on this release, Laura started a Substack page which has become this really powerful way for her to connect with her fans.” This Substack hit 10k subscribers in just a few months. The reaction from fans has been remarkable. “It’s just a very genuine and impactful way to connect with your fans.”
“Laura is so prolific…creatively she can do no wrong. I imagine when you’re an artist at that stage you just don’t want to keep repeating yourself…she’s never even close to doing that.”
At this point, our conversation takes a brief interlude as I recount the story of the first time I encountered Laura’s music. It was around 2007. I was 16 or 17 at the time, an aspiring songwriter myself, in London to play a small string of forgettable shows. Try as I might, I cannot remember the venue, but I distinctly remember Marling’s performance. My mind still jangles with the memory of this bird-like teenager taking to the stage, her white blonde hair and angelic complexion made almost translucent by the stage lights. She opened with ‘Tap At My Window’, and it was like all the air had been sucked out the room. I was absolutely enraptured (and probably a little bit in love, if we’re being honest), and I’ve been a fan ever since.
I put it to Emma that throughout the many bends of her career to date, Laura Marling has managed to retain that awesome power to enrapture. “That’s so spot on,” she agrees, “she’s one of a kind…a once in a generation talent…her songwriting abilities, her nature as a performer…they’re completely unique.”
Utterly transcendent talent like Marling’s deserves to be experienced in a wholly intentional way, and whilst listening to a record front to back is not as common as it used to be, presenting this as an opportunity to fans feels like a tantalising prospect. Is this event something Partisan considers with all their releases, or is this special to Laura?
“We’ve done events like this before in record stores for certain artists, but this is the first time we’ve tackled listening events in this way; using spaces across the world that weren’t just record stores.” The idea was to host listening events for fans in beautiful, intimate spaces that mirrored one of the key themes of the album. “We were looking for places that almost had a homely feel…Laura recorded the majority of this record at home with her baby by her side. That was the inspiration for it…finding spaces that fit with that feeling.”
Patters in Repeat on Vinyl
Emma and her team found suitable spaces in Dublin, Paris, New York, Berlin, Melbourne, Tokyo, and of course London. “Sessions Art Club is such a uniquely beautiful space…it felt in keeping with what we were trying to achieve.” Given the opportunity on offer, demand for tickets was high. “I think because Laura's fanbase has grown to such a size at this point in her career…we ran the competition through Rough Trade and lots of people wanted to come!
Events like this have ballooned in popularity over the last few years, with artists of all shapes and sizes looking to include listening events in their promotional campaigns. What does the label and the artist get out of events like these? “It’s just a really great way for people to connect with a record, and experience it in a much more intentional way than most people listen to music day to day. It’s about connecting with fans in a really meaningful way.”
Once again, I’m struck by how uncynical an approach this is to marketing music. It’s deeply refreshing, and indicative of the energy and atmosphere of the event as a whole. It’s to the meat of the matter that we turn next.
The Event
Ascend the lift through the red front door, and you’ll emerge on the fourth floor of the Session Arts building. I see Andy Oattes, the Founder of The Art Of Slowdown, busily overseeing the installation of a world-class sound system. A Griffin Diablo 333 Integrated Amplifier provides power and levelling, beautifully rendered Marten Parker Quintet Floorstanding Loudspeakers create the soundstage, and an AMG Giro Mk2 record player makes up the analogue source. For experiencing the full breadth and scope of a vinyl recording, few finer systems are likely to exist.
Guests at Sessions Arts Club
For attendees, this is just the start of the audible and visual treats. Sessions Arts Club is a genuinely jaw-dropping space - shadows of its faded members’ club opulence have been physically stripped away to reveal bare concrete walls, with period features carefully nurtured back to a new, modernist life. Lighting comes in the form of candlelight and stunning gas-lamp ceiling roses - all of which elicit a pleasingly Victorian gloominess that perfectly complement the raging storm outside.
As time approaches, attendees shuffle into the room and take their places at tables around the dining room. Their table tops are complete colouring pencils, with the audience encouraged to colour in the front of their lyrics books and form repeating patterns of their own. Before the listening session begins, a short message from Laura welcomes fans to the venue and wishes them good bidding in hearing the record in full. A silence then arranges itself throughout the space, as the needle touches Side A on the vinyl.
Guests colouring in the front of their lyrics books
As track one starts up, and Marling’s transcendantly beautiful new record unfolds before us, I’m slowly struck by the stillness of a thought. There’s an ethereal, church-like quality to this event - with all these earnest and engaged individuals, patiently listening whilst lit by naked flame. Each person is processing something altogether personal, yet they’re united by the collective experience of hearing this stunning music, in this stunning setting. As each track ends, there’s hushed silence from the room, like the pause in a liturgy, and then comes the perfectly paced turning of pages in lyrics books, a congregation following its order of service.
The music continues to unravel beautifully, and I find myself pondering this thought further. Whilst church congregations have tumbled in recent decades, a mental health crisis has simultaneously flourished. Perhaps we really need some of that stillness that church once offered us, that weekly time to reflect on our lives and ourselves. Perhaps events and moments like listening to beautiful music in a beautiful setting on a Sunday morning can recapture some of that intentional, meditative energy that we've lost from our lives, just without the weight of belief that accompanies it? Perhaps, ultimately, that’s what The Art Of Slowdown is here to help us do?
“It’s funny where your mind can take you when you cease looking at your phone for 45 minutes.”
An Intentional Listening Experience
As we move to Side B, I find myself pondering another, much more practical question; is the way we interact with music once again changing? It seems to me that genuine music lovers are starting to push back on the transactional nature of modern music consumption, and yearning for something more meaningful. I put this question to Emma, too. Does she see any movement here?
“I feel like, in my own life and anecdotally, there’s a heightened awareness about how short our attention spans are becoming. I think people are rightly a bit freaked out by that now. Fans of music still want to experience music to the fullest. Whether that’s live, or listening at events like this and engaging with an album…having more events like this gives people the chance to give music their full attention.”
As the session draws to a close, I‘m keen to talk to members of the audience, and explore their feelings on this. I sit down with two fans, Dom and Rory, who attended the event together.
‘Patterns In Repeat’ was played back on a world-class music system featuring Marten loudspeakers, Gryphon Audio power and levelling, and an Audio Technica turntable. System supplied by Harmony HiFi in conjunction with Reference Audio.
The Fan Experience
Dom and Rory are both 29, living and working in London. They applied for tickets via Laura’s mailing list. “I wasn’t expecting to get them to be honest. It’s hard to know how competitive these things are but it felt like such a special event that we figured it would be in high demand”, Dom tells us. Dom and Rory are both long-term fans - Dom’s elder sister turned him on to Laura’s music back in 2010, Rory found her in 2008. It’s deeply rewarding to see two considerate and genuine fans given an opportunity like this.
Both had attended listening events before - including an event for Clairo’s latest release in the summer - but none really matched up to the energy of this event. “I feel like this is much more considered,” Rory argues, “...it feels like a lot of consideration has been given to how the aesthetic and the surroundings complement the music.” Dom agrees; “It’s just such a meaningful way to experience a record for the first time,” he explains. “I went to something similar last year in a record store…and while it was cool to hear an album before it was released, it was literally just 200 people standing in a shop…I was thinking about that a lot throughout this.”
Lee Broderick chatting to fans at the event
I’m eager to understand how Dom and Rory take in music in their own time. Is this a unique experience for them? “I’ll listen to records front to back at home, for sure.” Dom explains. “If it’’s a release that really matters to me, I’ll always try and put some time aside to experience the record in full.” Rory agrees. “I can often remember exactly where I was when I first listened to a record I love…sometimes that’s at home from the comfort of my couch…one time it was walking round IKEA.”
“I’m really pleased the organisers asked us to put our phones away,” Dom continues, “we probably would have done anyway, but it's actually really useful to get that instruction and just focus on what’s happening in the room. It made it so much more mindful.”
For Dom, the playback choice of vinyl adds something tangible to the event, even though he isn’t personally hitting play. “Vinyl sort of compels you to listen front to back, there’s something intentional about this process of putting it on, turning it over.” Dom and Rory grew up on the very tail end of physical music media’s dominance. Do they feel any craving to get back to that intentional listening process? Rory offers an intriguing answer. “One thing I often think with streaming is that someone could just take all that music away from us. I don’t physically own many of these records that are really important to me.” Dom agrees. “Sometimes that happens, you know? Like with random live versions or deep cuts you love. I’ve lost some tracks forever that I really wish I had physical copies of.”
As the event wraps up, and servers clean tables around us, I feel it’s only right to leave the last word to two true Laura Marling fans. How did they feel about “Patterns in Repeat”? “Loved it”, they both chorus immediately. “It’s perfect for this time of year…really stripped back and simple…the confidence to make something that direct and naked is so impressive,” Dom suggests. “When you know her work deeply, you know there’s so much to be discovered in this music.” Dom tells us.
I’m back out into the wind-swept streets of Central London, ducking between buildings to escape ominous looking rainclouds. Despite the threatening weather I walk most of the way back to Paddington Station, and I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Dom’s final point. I’m eager to get home and press play on my own copy of the record, and find out what else there is to discover in this beguiling and beautiful record..
Patterns In Repeat is available now, on Chrysalis & Partisan Records. Our warm thanks to Emma Snook, Dom, Rory, and all who contributed to this article. Written by Lee Broderick.