When Laura Marling finishes her piano-led performance of No One’s Gonna Love You Like I Can, a tender love song for her daughter, she claims to feel shy. “That was the biggest impostor syndrome I’ve ever felt singing at that piano,” the 34-year-old says. It’s both charming and ridiculous coming from this relaxed and instinctive live musician, who, half a set in, has commanded the venue with understated power. You’re struck with the sense that she is probably the closest artist her generation has to a Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez or Patti Smith – at least here in her home of England.
Marling’s guitar playing is intricate, blending lead and sitar-like tones, while her vocals – still angelic – have taken on a richer, oaken quality since she emerged a clear victor from the “stomp-clap” folk-pop landscape in her teens. She opens and closes with songs from her earlier albums, including the earthy first four tracks from 2013’s Once I Was an Eagle performed in their entirety, just with her voice and guitar.
But really, this show is all about her new record, Patterns in Repeat: songs about motherhood and domesticity that are her best in a decade. The new material blooms from the centre of the setlist, as Marling is joined by a string ensemble and a local all-female choir. Your Girl, a meditative song on love and loss, feels particularly transcendent as the choral vocals fill the church, their ethereality set against Marling’s more tangible timbre.
It is thrilling when artists outperform their own records live, adding intuitive flourishes that sound as if they should have always been there. Marling’s improvisation, when it comes, consistently has the gentle force to break hearts. Sometimes it’s a poetic diversion in place of an established verse (during the lyrics of The Suite, for example); at other moments her guitar melodies wander off-piste, seemingly searching for an even deeper emotion. Throughout this intimate evening, complete with self-effacing humour and warm commentary, she is still that musician who has always been mature for her years, but is now at the height of her powers.
• Playing Hackney Church until 2 Nov, then Bowery Ballroom, New York, 10-12 November.
