Wednesday 5th June

She is so new that I only discovered her last year.  Still in her early twenties she has released four albums already, though I still haven’t bought the latest one.  She reminds me so much of Joni, not in the sound of her voice or her playing, but in the confessional nature of her songs which while never explicit or totally obvious show a frailty and understanding of the complicated nature of love itself, which is far beyond her tender years.

There is a hypnotic element to both her guitar playing and her voice that seduces the listener and weaves them into the pattern of the song itself.  Sometimes mystical, sometimes magical, her words wind around your mind so that when the record stops you want to hear it all again and again.

In many ways she is also the heir to Leonard Cohen himself, that intense poet of the heart, though Laura’s words are not so finely honed, they touch the heart just the same.

One song, on her third album ‘Night After Night’ could indeed have been a Leonard Cohen song, it is so evocative and touching.

I have ordered the new album and cannot wait to hear it, and she is so young there will surely be many many more.

It is wonderful to know that the torch has indeed been handed on and shines just as brightly in these pretty younger hands.