STACK #149 Mar 2017

NEWS MUSIC

WHAT'S THE STORY?

We have a look back at the fascinating tales behind some of our favourite album covers.

H e's definitely on a steady course, the famous Mr. Ed. More adored than any ungulate I can think of (except a baby tapir?), Ed Sheeran has wrapped up his Australian promotional tour and left us with the wonderful ÷ divide ; we spoke to President of Warner Music's artist services and label arm, Tony Harlow – the man behind Ed's first ever Australian promo tour – for our cover feature. There're also interviews with Holy Holy, The Waifs, All Our Exes Live In Texas, James Mercer of The Shins, and more. Enjoy. Zo ë Radas (Music Editor)

INTERVIEW

W ith their debut album In The Court Of The Crimson King , English prog- rock group King Crimson were quickly recognised as one of the most radical – and later influential – bands in the genre’s history; their irreverent adoption of jazz and symphonic flairs over the blues-based patterns that defined rock music before them was unprecedented. Their debut’s cover features a painting by computer programmer Barry Godber, the original of which was recovered by King Crimson lead guitarist Robert Fripp in the mid-‘90s from the band’s label HQ. “They kept it exposed to bright light, at the risk of ruining it, so I ended up removing it,” Fripp said in 1995. He describes the featured visage as “the Schizoid Man”, the protagonist of the album’s single 21st Century Schizoid Man (sung by lead vocalist Greg Lake, later of Emerson, Lake & Palmer). In a December 1969 performance of the track, Fripp told the audience the song is about Spiro Agnew, the 39th Vice President of the United States (under President Richard Nixon). Agnew resigned from office in 1973 amid investigations of flagrant corruption and the burgeoning Watergate scandal, which prompted the first ever use of the 25th Amendment (which details succession to a Presidential office when its current holder is “incapacitated”). Agnew pleaded no contest to the criminal charges brought against him and was disbarred by the Maryland judiciary, who declared him “morally obtuse.” THIS MONTH: In The Court Of The Crimson King, King Crimson (1969)

LAURA MARLING T he opening track on Laura Marling’s sixth studio record is so evocative you can’t blame she died. It’s just a beautiful book about the lineage of women in her family, basically."

Lyricism aside there are also some very intriguing sonic details on the album; while Marling credits her drummer, engineer and producer with many of the designs, she admits their approaches encouraged her own ideas. “Blake [Mills, producer] will take a snare hit and put … the microphone behind the piano so that it catches the strings of the piano, and then put that through reverb,” she explains of the ethereal effects on Next Time . “It’s all crazy f-cking stuff. They deal with that kind of musical experimentation, which is really, really good because it pushes me to do more innovative stuff.” It’s still very important to her, however, to be able to recreate these things live. “The consistency through all of my it makes music sound alive, and I can hear when it’s not recorded like that, and it just doesn’t sound living to me. I want to be able to accurately do what we did in the studio on stage, which can be a bit limiting. For instance, we couldn’t afford to take a string quartet on tour, which would’ve been amazing for this album, ‘cause the strings are so amazing. But it’s not possible. So we’re doing the arrangement so that my backing singers sing the string arrangement.” That promises to be a spectacular experience; no Australian dates have been announced yet, but we can believe in the dream. records has been recording all together in a room," she says. "And I think that’s important – it’s important to me. I think

yourself for having a visceral reaction. Titled Soothing , it’s super carnal, with a sauntering beat and small guitar licks which creep down chromatically in teasing scutters. Marling’s voice is vulnerable and commanding at once. The clip features two women in PVC outfits performing some sort of sensual ritual, watched by an austere group of biddies. There’s something very The

Handmaid’s Tale about it, indicating the hidden and taboo, and Marling says as much – but that’s all. “It’s a collection of different images from a dream,” she says. “Everything in there is from a dream and has some symbolic reference to it.” Marling is taciturn with her explanations about the impetus behind most of Semper Femina ’s tracks; while we already know that

Semper Femina by Laura Marling is out March 10 via Kobalt.

a phrase from the epic poem by Virgil, Aeneid , is responsible for the record’s title, Marling expands on another work of literature which inspired stand-out cut Nouel . The track's lyrics include lines from Virgil's poem, an allusion to Aesop's fable about the thorn in the lion's paw, and traditional poetic devices. “A lot of the images in that particular song [are] from When Women Were Birds , which is a book by a writer called Terry Tempest Williams," Marling explains. "It’s a beautiful book about her mother dying, and what sort of things she remembered about her mother as she was dying, and then when

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