Bristol’s own loudmouth punk rocker Billy Nomates has released a new single ‘Heels’ from her newly announced EP ‘Emergency Telephone’. Billy Nomates – real name Tor Maries – made waves in an already tempestuous UK post-punk scene last year after dropping her eponymous debut album. Her debut was a calculated feather rustler, delivered with warm fervour in a soulfully explicit package – think John Lydon with Wanda Jackson’s voice box. It was boisterous enough to catch the ear of fellow post-punk contemporaries Sleaford Mods, with whom she recently collaborated on ‘Mork n Mindy’ from their latest album.  ‘Heels’ very much follows suit, but now with a revisioned backing track to take Billy away from rumbling punk bass-lines and into a new realm of Blondie style electronica.

Carrying over the derisive sentiment of her debut, Billy rails against limiting gender stereotypes and societal expectations on the new track: “Lift your boots, tilt your hat, I refuse to die looking like that” she barks, returning to the line “I don’t do heels” throughout the song, reiterating her revolt over any sort of pre-packaged plan society might have for her. On a more sombre note, ‘Heels’ expresses an acknowledgement of the precarious world we live in, and how the courage to keep on keeping on is the best thing we can have.

“Heels is about knowing who we are,” Billy Nomates told NME. “It’s about acknowledging strength under scrutiny and pressure. It’s also about how playtime feels over. Stuff’s serious. We don’t know how any of what’s happening ends yet. There are about 10 threats every day at any given time that feel big enough to stop you from doing anything. It’s digging for a warrior approach to keep going.” 

Maries’ five-track EP ‘Emergency Telephone’ – slated for release March 5th – further explores themes of alienation, communication breakdown and distaste for equivocation. The name, she says, came out of her newly developed curiosity in phone boxes, many of which are dotted around her current base on the Isle of Wight.

“I got obsessed with this idea that it’s this dying line, that they’re all going to go soon. It’s like the last saloon for them. I got a bit obsessed and fascinated. I’m also very lonely! I just liked the idea, they’ve got their own weird appeal and their own strange stories to tell,” she told The Quietus. “In retrospect it is my response to the last year. I don’t think I intended to do that, and I resent that I’ve done that in a way, but I think it’s almost necessary. I think a few of us are gonna have to purge this.”