Billy Nomates teams up with Hugh Cornwell of her late father’s favourite band The Stranglers, on the song Dark Horse Friend.

I was immediately curious about Billy Nomates when I first encountered her kitchen-sink observations on the semi-spoken song Supermarket Sweep five years ago.

That featured guest vocals by Jason Williamson of Sleaford Mods, and she returned the favour on their single Mork n Mindy, but I found her own recordings – like her debut single No – unappealingly bleak, harsh and spartan despite their lyrical authenticity.

Now, having survived a social media pile-on for playing Glastonbury with backing tracks rather than an old-fashioned “band”, she’s unveiled her singing voice and I can’t help but wonder where she was hiding it until now. 

Dark Horse Friend is another collaboration letting her roots show, this time with Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers, and while it lacks some of the anger of her earlier work, it’s very lovely.

Billy – real name Tor (Victoria) Maries – started out in an alternative folk group after moving to Bristol in her teens but abandoned music altogether when the band broke up and moved to Bournemouth to live with her sister.

It was a few more years before she began writing songs articulating her frustration after a bad breakup and a string of dead-end jobs, recording them on a laptop in her sister’s kitchen with instruments borrowed from friends.

Her career took off after she sent her demos to Sleaford Mods who connected her with another Bristol alumnus, Geoff Barrow of Portishead, who signed her to his Invada label and helped her add finishing touches to her songs.

Her most recent album, Metalhorse, based around a loose concept about a decaying funfair, was influenced by the highs and lows of her personal and professional lives, including the death of her father, a music teacher whose favourite band was The Stranglers – hence the guest appearance by Cornwell.