Billie Marten on Tour
Isabella Sophie Tweddle, better known by her stage name, Billie Marten, is a British singer-songwriter with a down-to-earth acoustic sound. Marten's live performances feature beautiful songs sung with a sweet and familiar sound. With heart and lyrical intensity, she keeps audiences enthralled. Marten's first release was 2014's Ribbon EP, followed by the 2015 release of her As Long As EP. Marten then released her first full-length album, Writing of Blues and Yellows, in 2016. Her next album came three years later with 2019's Feeding Seahorses by Hand. In 2021, Marten had a prolific year, releasing both Flora Fauna and the Acoustic EP. In April 2023, Marten released the full-length studio album Drop Cherries, marking the first time that the singer-songwriter both wrote and co-produced one of her records.
Billie Marten Live in Concert
Originally from North Yorkshire, Isabella Sophie Tweddle began playing guitar at age seven. At nine, she began releasing music on YouTube in the form of pop song covers made mostly for the benefit of her grandparents living in France. After confirming her interest in music to her mother by age 12, in 2012 she went on the YouTube live music session channel, Ont' Sofa, to perform a cover of Lucy Rose's "Middle of the Bed.'' She was then invited by Rose to join her UK tour in October of that same year. In 2014, Marten released her EP Ribbon, setting herself up for a long and successful career. When asked about the origin of her stage name in a 2021 interview with Buzz Magazine, Marten said, "My name was difficult to say and spell. Firstly, it was after John Martyn, a need for simplicity. When I started doing gigs, I found that there would be misspellings, abbreviations and no one could find me on the internet -- I wanted something simple and something important and that was Marten."
In a 2014 interview with Teen Vogue, Marten was asked about what makes her worth listening to. She responded by describing her sound as, "[A] mix between acoustic and quite folky and a little indie." Marten's simplistic and stripped-down sound earned her a spot on The BBC's "The Sound of 2016" list, where she was described as an "adolescent prodigy."
