Billie Marten - Writing of Blues & Yellows review: 'these songs take time to yield their secrets and delights'

Marten fashions her own world of fragile darkness
New album: Billie Marten's Writing of Blues & Yellows
John Aizlewood23 September 2016

Omy 17 and fresh from the Yorkshire Dales, the former Isabella Tweddle sounds worldweary rather than fresh-faced.

Her approach is basic, mostly just some John Martyn-style strumming and mumbling, but she creates all sorts of beguiling textures, like a lessproduced Kate Bush.

Other than a pointless cover of Jane & Barton’s It’s a Fine Day and a more successful tilt at Royal Blood’s Out of the Black, these songs take time to yield their secrets and delights.

Whether snorkelling her way through the tempestuous waters of the relatively lush Bird, detailing the more straightforward and spartan Emily or gliding over the relatively up-tempo Milk & Honey, Marten fashions her own world of fragile darkness. That it’s been created by a teenager makes it no less absorbing.

(Chess Club/RCA)

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