Bea Elmy Martin doesn’t so much return with “Where We Part” as she resurfaces — slow, deliberate, and sure-footed. The London-based alt-pop artist has always favoured depth over spectacle, and her latest single — the first from her forthcoming debut album Under the Yew — is a testament to what time, distance, and care can do for a song.
Written in the wake of personal grief, “Where We Part” unfolds with quiet, mournful clarity. It begins in solitude — sparse piano chords, a voice just on the edge of breaking — before gently expanding into something orchestral, layered, and luminously textured. There’s a restraint here that feels earned. Bea never rushes the catharsis; she allows it to bloom slowly, like a memory returning mid-sentence.
The track’s emotional register is delicate but firm. Drawing sonic parallels to artists like Billie Marten and Joy Crookes, there’s a low-burning intensity to Martin’s delivery that captures the internal shifts of loss — not in grand declarations, but in glances, silences, the way a phrase hangs longer than expected. Her lyrics, too, move with poetic precision: ruminations on absence, endings, and the redefinition of self in the quiet aftermath.
Produced by longtime collaborator Dominick J Goldsmith (of trip-hop outfit HÆLOS), the arrangement avoids obvious crescendos. Instead, it simmers. Gentle swells of harmony and ambient washes create a sense of interiority, like a sonic diary entry, painstakingly composed. It’s this clarity of intention that makes “Where We Part” feel not just personal, but universal.
As the first glimpse of Under the Yew, the track suggests a body of work that’s less concerned with chasing trends than it is with creating space — for feeling, for reflection, for rebuilding. Bea Elmy Martin is not in a rush. And that patience, that quiet courage to dwell in emotion rather than escape it, might just be her greatest strength.
