The Fat Angel Sings

Now that Laura Marling has announced Semper Femina – her sixth studio album due in March . Billie Marten seems like her protégée-elect. Many critics, when reviewing Marten’s debut album, noted the comparisons to Marling – in terms of age, sound and stunning lyrics. “Emily” a track from her debut album Writing Of Blues and Yellows could easily have featured on Marling’s finest albums but is doggedly the work of the seventeen-year-old Yorkshire native. Its lyrics talk of burdensome stones (being tied around the heroine’s throat) and rivers “too wide” – the song’s heroine feeling the strain and battling against harsh forces (either physical obstacles or personal demons).

Whilst the lyrics immerse the listener in; the mind wonders as to the origins. Marten has stated, in interviews promoting Writing of Blues and Yellows, Emily was inspired by the forename-sharing Brontë sister. There is that literary edge and sense of impending tragedy: one wonders whether the song’s heroine will be able to traverse all before her. What stuns me about the song – and has kept it in my brain for weeks – is the phenomenal composition. Unlike anything else on Writing’, there are wave-crashing, sensual electronic strings; piano flourishes and aching cello. If some has made comparisons with early-career Laura Marling: it is Nick Drake’s masterpiece, Five Leaves Left, that spring to mind. Similar to his peerless string-and-voice sermons River Man and Way to Blue – you get a little of both in Emily. Marten’s voice is pure and resolute but, in the background, transmogrifies into a metaphysical, spectral things: aching and yowling like an ill-fated figure standing atop a wind-strewn cliff-top. It is impossible to listen to the song uninvolved: it drags you in and cements its heart in the hippocampus. By the final tremolo-affect guitar you are stunned and awed by what has come before – all from an artist still making her first steps. Audacious, spellbinding dramaturgy, at times beautiful, at others devastating: a clear reason – if one were needed – to investigate Writing of Blues and Yellows. Let’s hope Marten considers the song for single release as, not only would it reach a wider audience, but is sound/composition provokes a truly staggering music video.

As cars pass by in the background Billie Marten peforms Teeth for Mahogany Sessions in Ripon, Yorkshire

In the gorgeous Ripon Cathedral Billie Marten performs Emily for Mahogany Sessions