Billie Marten

When folk singer and songwriter Billie Marten turned 21, she had already been a recording artist of a third of her life. Born Isabella Sophie Tweddle on May 27, 1999 in Ripon, England, Martin showed a precocious interest in music. Before she was ten, she regularly posted videos of herself playing guitar and singing covers, and she also started writing her own songs, inspired by artists like Joni Mitchell and Damien Rice. After some viral success, she released her debut single, “Ribbon”, in 2014. The song captured her folky, sensitive, emotional vibe, and became the title track for her debut EP released later that year. Her profile expanded with a slot at that year’s Reading Festival. A follow-up EP, As Long As, was issued in 2015 as were a pair of singles (“Heavy Weather” and “Bird”) that would eventually appear on her debut LP, 2016’s Writing of Blues and Yellows. The album earned strong reviews and helped her capture a nomination for Sound of 2016 from the BBC. Her 2018 single “Blue Sea, Red Sea” became a radio hit, and would later appear on her 2019 album Feeding Seahorses by Hand, an intimate collection of often sad songs that may have been informed by her then-recent diagnosis of Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Please enable Javascript to view this page competely.