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February 5, 2026 — 1:32pm
For Billie Marten, music is as natural as breathing. At 26 the British singer-songwriter already boasts a decade-long career. It’s a journey that began when her father taught her guitar at age seven and she has been writing songs ever since.
Currently touring Australia and New Zealand – a run that kicked off in Brisbane on Wednesday – Marten is leaning into the intimate, “non-judgmental” atmosphere she first discovered during a standout Sydney show last year.
“It was the first show that I’ve sat down at, actually,” Marten recalls. “And I just sat down and just started playing tunes and it was just so warm and so lovely and kind of non-judgmental. I found it to be a very accepting group of people.”
Marten’s latest album, 2025’s Dog Eared, captures this intimacy. A breezy blend of soft rock and folk, the record traverses an inner world of airy vocals and jazzy keys. The title, she explains, reflects her view of her work as an ongoing, unfinished project.
“There’s a lot of pressure to make a ‘definitive’ record, and that is how people identify you,” she says. “So it was the idea that you would dog-ear the page and come back to whatever is left. At the time it was: here’s a small chapter of whatever just happened to me in the summer, and there will be more.”
The album flows from upbeat tracks like Feeling to slower, stripped-back numbers like Leap Year. The album also draws heavily on canine imagery as a tool for emotional sensitivity.
In No Sudden Changes Marten invokes the image of a resting dog to describe a moment of peace: “Outside its turning I am standing still/Like a dog whose chin is resting upon your windowsill”.
“I had this strong connection to them and realised that they were the perfect subject to use as strong writing tools on an emotional sensitivity level.”
Her style is deeply rooted in the classics. Her namesake is the late British guitarist John Martyn. “I grew up with John Martyn, who’s a family favourite of ours, so much so that I took his name and changed a letter.”
Folk legends Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, and American alternative singer-songwriter Fiona Apple, are influences.
“They appear incredibly independent, no matter what time they’re in,” Marten says. “They’re just timeless people. So I kind of follow them to the ends of the Earth.”
Marten was signed by Chess Club Records, a subsidiary of Sony Music, at 15 years old, and her discography now spans five studio albums. The musician struggles with being labelled prolific.
“It’s a huge honour that people think so. But you know, technically, if I’d started when I was 25, that would have been a normal, I suppose, progression.
“I think because I got signed – this was around 2014, 2015, which seems miles away from where we are now in the industry – it was just beginning to tip from records and vinyl into streaming. So I think I was very kind of protective about wanting to make, you know, records that counted, and wanted to make music that was everlasting, rather than the time we’re in now, which is that you have to make an immediate imprint.
“But I’d say, regardless of the ‘prolificness’” – she signals the air quotes around the word – “I certainly took my time and wanted to write things, you know, in real time.”
Now she is enjoying “pissing off her bandmates” trying to learn the piano and the fiddle, laughing as she describes playing “plinky-plonky songs made for a five-year-old”.
Asked what’s next, Marten pauses, thinks, then says: “The thing is, I’ve worked in a two-year cycle for so long that I can anticipate what’s coming to me next, and I feel that that is not the right headspace to be, in order to make something new. At the moment I’m just trying to surprise my brain a little bit.”
Billie Marten plays at Sydney’s Metro Theatre on February 6 and Melbourne’s Croxton Bandroom on February 7.
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