Laura Marling – Wild Fire

With her recent single ‘Soothing’, Laura Marling moved into sparser instrumental territory to create a bold, attention-grabbing first taste of what to expect from ‘Semper Femina’. On new single ‘Wild Fire’, she’s moved swiftly back into alt-folk territory, but the results are no less arresting.

Perhaps that’s because Laura has never seemed so confident in her songwriting, tackling identity and femininity through the lens of her relationship with an unspecified muse. On the surface it’s a tale of love and friendship, but scratch that surface a little and a deft examination of the gaze and perception is revealed.

When her friend says that she wants to write a book, the part that interests Laura most “is about her time spent with me” because “wouldn’t you die to know how you’re seen”. Elsewhere, she claims that her muse loves her most when “I don’t know when I’m being seen” even though she doesn’t really know what that means. By turns vulnerable and confident, ‘Wild Fire’ might be one of Laura’s most thought-provoking and beautifully written tracks to date.