Billie Marten shares new single ‘Leap Year’ from upcoming album Dog Eared

Billie Marten has released ‘Leap Year’, the third single from her forthcoming album Dog Eared, out 18th July via Fiction Records.

Written on 29th February this year, ‘Leap Year’ takes its cue from the strangeness of that extra day. It imagines two lovers bound by a peculiar fate, only able to meet once every four years. “It’s about two people who can only be reunited every leap year; they have one day every four years,” Marten explains. “It’s a song about fleeting love and the pain that can bring.”

Built from a digital Optigan app on her phone, the track stitches together pre-sampled chords into a subdued and emotionally sharp centrepiece. It’s a moment of bittersweet stillness on a record that appears to be quietly pushing at the edges of Marten’s folk roots. The song is lifted by a guitar solo from Sam Evian, described as “epochal” in its place within the album’s narrative arc.

Dog Eared was recorded in New York with producer Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek) and features a dense, all-star ensemble including Núria Graham, Shahzad Ismaily, Sam Amidon and Maia Friedman. The album follows 2023’s Drop Cherries, and sees Marten stepping further into a collaborative space, sending demos across the Atlantic and refining her ideas in real time.

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Following extensive support slots with Elbow and Tennis this summer, Billie will appear on the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury on 27th June, before embarking on a wide-ranging headline tour through the autumn. The run concludes with her largest headline show to date at London’s O2 Forum Kentish Town on 15th November.

Billie Marten live:

13th June – Cardiff Castle, Cardiff (w/ Elbow)

18th June – Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (w/ Elbow)

19th June – Westonbirt Arboretum, Gloucestershire (w/ Elbow)

27^th June – Glastonbury Festival (Acoustic Stage)

3rd July – York Museum Gardens, York

7th November – SWG3 TV Studio, Glasgow

8th November – Newcastle University Student Union, Newcastle

10th November – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

11th November – SWX, Bristol

13th November – Academy 2, Manchester

14th November – Irish Centre, Leeds

15th November – O2 Forum Kentish Town, London

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