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| Surbiton Lagoon | dominicmurcott.com |
One of the most overplayed tropes in modern music is that of the guitar-strumming indie darling. Off the top of your head you could name a dozen musicians with asymmetrical eye-obscuring haircuts whose schtick consists entirely of crooning witticisms and gently plucking at the strings of their precious instruments (and of their audience's hearts).
Enter Laura Moody. She swaps out the crooning for quavery songbird intonations. She opts for Edwardian curls over fwoopy modern coiffure. And most strikingly, in lieu of a guitar, she accompanies herself on the most regal of stringed instruments — the cello.
The sense of intimacy is retained across the trope upon which she has improved a dozenfold. Like the Ed Sheerans of the musical world, there is never a shadow of doubt that Moody is performing for anyone but you. But unlike her ruggedly casual contemporaries, she sings with authority and poise that Courtney Barnett could never hope to match.
Laura Moody's music is the definition of elegance and tranquility. She has created a sound that is at once entirely novel and comfortingly familiar.