To celebrate the release of her debut album, 'Alas I Cannot Swim', Laura Marling played an intimate set at Notting Hill's Rough Trade West on Monday evening. Despite creeping behind the makeshift stage of the shop counter rather quietly, Marling quickly had the 100 or so fans crammed into the store silently and attentively listening as she skillfully picked her way through half an hour of the signature folk featured on her album.

Highlights included the gallopingly rhythmic 'My Manic and I' the title track from her recent EP that allowed her to begin conquering the emerging modern folk scene in 2007, and current single 'Ghosts', released last Monday. Despite the studio version of 'Ghosts' featuring a full band, Marling's solo effort is not diminished in comparison. Quite the contrary in fact, the controlled melody of Marling's voice carried the song and delivered the crescendos and rhythm changes with an intensity so perfect you could hear a pin drop.

Similarly, in her performance of 'Night Terror', Marling delivered the vocals with the control and range of Joni Mitchell and the distinctly English tones of Sandy Denny.

Indeed, Marling has been steeped in musical greats from a very early age. Her father, a singer-songwriter himself, not only taught her to play the guitar at the age of three, but also forced her and her sisters to listen to the likes of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Neil Young while they were growing up.

Not surprising, then, that despite having less than two decades behind her, Marling has already cultivated a more authentic and mature sound than the likes of her contemporary Adele, to whom she is so frequently and wrongly compared purely on the basis that they share gender, age and profession.

Laura Marling's performance at Rough Trade on Monday looks set to be looked back upon as a rare treat. With her profile growing by the day, it seems likely that soon the opportunity to see such a talented musician play to such a small crowd, let alone walk past the artist herself chatting with friends on the way in, will be long gone.

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