Billie Marten returns with utterly enchanting new single "Mice"

Having first caused a bit of a stir with her delicate and carefully-crafted folk-tinged sound back in 2016, the Yorkshire-based artist took some time out and has now returned with a song that is warm and full embracing like a tight hug, and ripples with a patient maturity as Billie Marten steps back to navigate her place in the world.

"Mice" is the sound of an artist who is growing and maturing into her sound, where Marten's gorgeous, honeyed vocals possess a haunting fragility, teetering on a knife-edge and threatening to break yet never rupturing. Instead it's a silky caramel hue that envelopes the song that sees Marten explore her personal confusion at a time when she was feeling at a loss and as though she was lacking purpose.

Speaking on the song, Marten explains how she originally didn't even like the song after she wrote it and only returned to it a few months later, “I wrote it a few years ago after taking myself to Cornwall and thinking I’ll never write a song again. I left it alone for a while then played it to my producer Rich; we recorded a demo that day and it was done.

She has also gone on to explain how the song has taken on a new life of its own, and as time has passed it has a new meaning, as she says "When I play it now I sing it in a different light. Laughing at how I felt back then, how much I hated the song, but I sing it with more of an ironic nod to self deprecation. It’s lazy and self-effacing, but by no means serious."