First Watch: Laura Marling, 'Next Time'

"I don't want to be the kind / struck by fear, to run and hide / I'll do better next time."

The more I hear from Laura Marling's upcoming album, Semper Femina, the more I'm convinced, over a career of intimate and beautiful work, that it's the most inspired, beautiful and fully realized thing she's done. The latest cut she's sharing from the record is "Next Time," a perfectly rendered vignette that captures the moment when solitude can lead to enlightenment.

In this elegant video for "Next Time," a lone woman appears trapped in a baroque room, intermittently examining various objects and dancing, as though she's trying to both make sense of and escape from the space she's created.

The video was choreographed by Ally Green, with Marling herself directing. "I've never been inclined to give visual representation to my music personally," Marling tells NPR Music. "So to give my lucid dreaming quality to this, which is where I get a lot of imagery from, to give that form, was an amazing experience."

Semper Femina is due out March 10th on More Alarming Records.

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