FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Billy Nomates – Billy Nomates
__________
AS she recently…
announced the release of her second studio album, CACTI (due on 23rd January), I have been thinking about the eponymous debut from Billy Nomates. The moniker of Tor Maries, Billy Nomates was released in 2020. I would advise people go and buy the album, as it is a remarkable debut from the British songwriter. Mixing politics, personal and societal lyrics with her distinct and incredible vocals and something danceable and catchy, there is nobody on the scene like Billy Nomates. If you have not heard the debut album, I would strongly recommend it. I am going to come to a couple of reviews for the album. Prior to that, there is an interview from NME to promote her debut. For many, it was the introduction to this amazing artist. I have selected a few segments from it:
“Originally slated for release in May on Invada Records, the you-know-what pandemic has meant that the record has now been delayed until August 7. “I initially freaked out,” Maries admits. “I thought back in April that the world may never be the same — will we just wait forever if we delay? But it was a good call.”
It was on the train home from her final day in the studio producing the record alongside Invada’s Geoff Barrow (also of Portishead) and Stu Matthews that she first read about coronavirus, such is the album’s symbiotic relationship with the pandemic. Indeed, in the post-COVID reality that is now beginning to dawn on us, her tales of class struggle and social inequality are set to ring truer than ever.
“I’ve never really had money, but I was the poorest I’d been a couple of years ago after working a load of minimum wage jobs,” Maries explains. “I was miserable and poor and unfulfilled: I couldn’t write about fancying someone or anything nice. I thought: ‘If I’m going to write again, I have no option but to write about “ah, it’s all crap“.’”
Maries says that she considers herself to be on the edge of working class, but she does rue the absence of the full range of voices in music. “You don’t see a lot of working class people in any arts, you have to really look for it. You’ll instantly notice them, though, because there’s a tone of voice that’s allowed to come through that you haven’t heard for a long time.”
One of the most visible examples of this in recent years is Sleaford Mods, and frontman Jason Williamson appears on the bitterly sweet Billy Nomates track ‘Supermarket Sweep’. Aside from the obvious kinship that they share musically, the two artists also have roots in the East Midlands (Maries is originally from Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire) as well as another more pivotal connection.
“I went through quite a bad depression stage,” Maries says, referring to the inception of the Billy Nomates project in early 2019. “I had a few months where a relationship had broken down, I was sleeping on my sister’s couch, I’d gone into a real funk and just didn’t want to leave the house or see anyone. I saw Sleaford Mods were coming to Southampton, so I just got a ticket by myself. I remember being in the crowd watching the warm-up band — Liines, a really good band — and some drunk guy shoved me on the shoulder and shouted: ‘It’s Billy no-mates!’ I’d just started recording at the time and I didn’t have a name. It’s genuinely one of those moments that I’ll never forget. That guy was a fucking genius”.
An album that was well reviewed by those who heard it but not shared and talked about as much as it should have been, I wanted to alert people to Billy Nomates’ eponymous debut. I am interested to hear what we might get from CACTI – she released the saboteur forcefield single recently – and how it differs from Billy Nomates. Here is what Loud and Quiet observed about a mighty debut album – and one of the best albums of 2020:
“Tor Maries only embraced self-prioritisation recently. Meaning: she’d spent a life not always putting herself first. The songwriter, who originates from the pork pie capital Melton Mowbray, spent years performing in groups around Bristol – there was some success, but little satisfaction.
It was only when Maries moved to Bournemouth, bought a ticket and flew solo to watch Sleaford Mods in 2019 – in a neat piece of circularity Jason Williamson pops up to rap about meat on ‘Supermarket Sweep’ – Maries decided to go it alone (she owes the moniker to a drunk man calling her “Billy Nomates” at that very show).
Billy Nomates is therefore what happens when you discard outside perceptions, pause people-pleasing and discover the power of self-expression. That’s why when observers question why Maries sometimes sings with a U.S. accent, she simply counters: it’s because I want to. Why not? Damn right.
These songs are Tor Maries’ experienced truth, then. ‘Modern Hart’ – a melancholic track that feels like a telegram to her old self – provides the opening. “Anyone can do it,” she sings over a grimy, Kim Deal-esque bassline.
It’s a subtle start, but things soon spice up with a string of acerbic and entertaining pot-shots. ‘Hippy Elite’ is about wanting to be more active in the climate emergency, but also needing to cover the household bills. ‘Happy Misery’ takes aim at anti-productive nostalgic mindsets (see also: Gazelle Twin’s ‘Better In My Day’) and ‘Supermarket Sweep’ a song about how the mundanity of financial survival chips away at aspirations. There’s the catchy centrepiece ‘No’ – about the empowering discovery of resistance.
Such everydayisms could come across as corny, but like her pals Sleaford Mods the songs are authentic, authoritative and frequently funny. They also pack a consistent and timely reminder: “Forgotten normal people are a force to remember”.
A really great album that warranted more exposure at the time and should be played and explored more now, Billy Nomates is so satisfying and rewarding. In their hugely positive review. Louder Than War recognised the quality that runs through Billy Nomates:
“A stark, black and white video appeared for No in March this year, just as things started to get a little strange. Just before the great toilet roll and hand sanitiser shortage. A video for FNP appeared in early June; Tor dancing in an otherwise empty field and singing about all the, “forgotten normal people”. The latter felt particularly apt when it dropped in the midst of the Barnard Castle, eye test fiasco and the governments increasing ambivalence towards the general population. As we head into summer, Billy Nomates has arrived with an album of innovative post-punk, defiance and danceable dissatisfaction.
Modern Hart bursts into life with Tor’s vocals riding over an insistent bass line and a wash of atmospheric synths. “He knows the codes to crack/ he watches me break my back/ I’m a slow learner” she sings before adding “but I’m getting the hang of it”. The lyrics are an undeniable highlight throughout the album; an engaging mix of anger, wit and storytelling. “One time I cycled all the way home/ because this planet is our only one” sings Maries on Hippy Elite “but nobody saw it and I felt all the worse for it”. A brilliantly sharp and genuinely funny post-punk belter about trying to do your best for the environment but never being good enough for the wealthy, hippy elite.
Tor builds each track with guitars, drums, bass, programmed beats and electronic textures. You can almost picture her jumping from one instrument to the next, relentlessly pinging around the room. Every track crackle’s with creativity. The jittery rattle of Happy Misery evokes the Monty Python ‘4 Yorkshiremen’ sketch – Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin’ in a corridor! Tor snarls and struts through a bitter tale of tainted nostalgia and living in the past, “back in my day/ I had nothing/ we lived in happy misery!”
Most songs don’t last much longer than 3 minutes; bursting with ideas while retaining a tight, punk-indebted sense of economy. Tor’s vocals switch between singing and a kind of snarled spoken word. The propulsive No sits at the heart of the album with a simple but powerful message; “No is the greatest resistance/ No to your nothing existence”. A defiant two-fingered refusal to succumb to damaging digital narratives, sexism and media manipulation. Supermarket Sweep tackles the seemingly never-ending black hole of a dead end job and features a guest appearance by Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson. The unexpectedly gentle chorus offering a particularly melancholic inner dialogue, “Maybe the monotony is here to stay he thought”. A great piece of songwriting and an all too relatable tale.
The punkified electro-pop of FNP delivers another empowering clarion call before Mudslinger takes aim at busybody curtain twitchers over a glitchy, electro-punk backing. Call In Sick lurches into view with drum machine beats and menacing synths as Maries tries her best to pull a sickie, “See I’ve been up all night/ with one of the worst cases this town has ever seen/ and if I come in Debbie/ if I come in Debbie/ I’m gonna take down the whole team”. The excellent Fat White Man rumbles in with a bluesy guitar riff and a superbly sleazy tale of a lecherous, red-faced executive. The cigar-chomping, once untouchable, dinosaurs rolling down the road and out of town for good.
Wild Arena is built around a sparse, repetitive drum loop and subtle synth interjections. Tor’s vocals all the more startling with the tense, minimalistic backdrop. It doesn’t feel as immediate as the other tracks yet emphasises the spirit of discovery and experimentation at the albums core. The album comes to a close with the breathless thrill of Escape Artist; Nomates sneering and swooning as she looks for the nearest exit in the midst of another unremarkable week. Of course, the magic here is that throughout the album, Billy Nomates takes all the unspeakable blandness and frustration of everyday life and turns it into something fun, exciting and damn near magical.
Clocking in at little over half an hour, Billy Nomates has made the kind of album you’ll find yourself playing again-and-again. Some much-needed respite from the never-ending Tory endorsed nightmare that is 2020. You can hear the boundless energy that Tor puts into every song and that kind of enthusiasm is pretty infectious. Make no mistake, Billy Nomates has just delivered one of the most exciting albums you’ll hear all year. What’s more, you get the feeling that she’s only just getting started”.
Although Tor Maries has been recorded music for a while now, with Billy Nommates, she has created one of the most potent and impressive forces in British music. I think her second album will top her amazing debut. That said, the 2020-released Billy Nommates is one everyone should hear. It is a wonderful album more than worthy of…
A second spin.