The folk prodigy comes of age. Released when she was just 17, Billie Marten’s debut album isn’t an astonishing achievement for a teen—it’s simply an astonishing achievement full stop. Her songs are gossamer light acoustic fairytales and they’re gorgeous. The opener “La Lune” is mesmeric, “Lionhearted” shows there’s steel behind the beautiful melodies while the quietly epic “Hello Sunshine” charts a stormy and intoxicating orchestral course.
This seventeen-year-old Ripon native entered music less with a bang and more a mellifluous, spine-tingling call. Writing of Blues and Yellows is a vastly mature work from a singer not only tender in years but making her debut statement. Poetic, literary-referencing and brutally honest – Billie Marten is a singer songwriter that gets into your head and is impossible to shift. The album standout Heavy Weather is a vivid and picturesque song replete with pattered beats and tender finger-picking, a seductive (chorus) vocal and one of the most pin-sharp performances across the record – you envisage yourself battling the “English winter” with the heroine. Bird and Emily are utterly beguiling while Teeth addresses mental illness and is one of the most personal songs across the album “Writing of Blues and Yellows”. It is easy to find comparisons between Marten and her musical icons Nick Drake, John Martyn and Kate Bush. You command the talent and Folk wonder of Marten a four-star beauty that showcases a rare and wonderful young talent. Make sure you keep your eyes trained on a musician that has a bright and varied career ahead for sure.
The talented singer/songwriter based out of North Yorkshire, Isabella Sophie Tweddle, better known by her stage name Billie Marten, first caught the public’s attention in 2011 (at the age of 12) via a YouTube performance that garnered the budding musician over 100,000 views. By 2014 she had released her first EP, and began earning favorable comparisons to fellow English folkies like Laura Marling and Lucy Rose. The following year saw Marten ink a deal with Chess Club Records and release a second EP,.
The Fat Angel Sings 