Billie Marten - Dog Eared

Billie Marten knows that the tell-tale signs that a book is well-loved are annotations and important pages dog-eared to come back to at a later date. You could say human life is similar: our existence mapped out by key occasions and core memories. The singer’s sixth album is made up of ten tracks that tell a story made up of snippets of moments from across her life.

The record begins with ‘Feeling’. It's a reflection on that period of time when, as a child, and all you know is playing with your toys and being made to feel safe and loved by everyone around you, but you are still somewhat aware that this won’t last forever. In the past, Marten has let her lyrics quite literally do all the talking, often opting for more stripped-back arrangements to accompany them, but on 'Dog Eared', she has gone all out. With the assistance of producer Phil Weinrobe, she pulled together a band of musicians whose contributions really help bring the album together. Recorded live, with no time for second takes or perfectionism, the rawness of her words is magnified in the instrumental patterns that bend and twist to fit around them.

She’s as candid as ever here, too, emotions drawn right to the surface with nowhere to go and nothing to hide behind. Having begun her career as a young teenager, she had a lot of growing up to do, and fast, in order to keep up with the music industry. ‘Clover’ is laden with contradicting statements that act as commentary on the feeling that you are the least powerful person in a setting, even when you’re trying to behave otherwise. The melody of ‘Crown’ is scattered and almost nonsensical, but it’s more than fitting for a song about mental struggle and finding tiny ways to deal with it, while 'Planets’ is a gorgeous ode to love and sharing a future with someone else, just the pair of you in your own little bubble.

'Dog Eared' is the singer turning the page and stepping things up a notch, and across the 10 tracks, everything feels much brighter and breezier than before.