What happens when a rising star suddenly cuts to black? Disappears from view, voluntarily, whilst on the ascendent. The strange case of Fable is one such story. Holly Cosgrove was still in her teens when she started turning heads. Born and raised in the Devon resort of Paignton, she spent most of her childhood being a “weird little pixie” in the countryside, whilst also, from a very early age, exploring sound. Her secondary school had a warped old piano, at which she would sit when she was meant to be in double maths. At home she’d listen to her mum’s reggae records and her dad’s post punk collection, including Siouxsie Sioux, who she has often been compared to. In her late teens she moved to Brighton and reinvented herself as the dark electro-rock entity, Fable and made her first recordings with trip-hop collective, ARCHIVE, leading to the release of her debut EP, Parasite. Her incendiary live shows quickly moved things on, and she performed twice at Glastonbury Festival, collaborated with ORBITAL and toured with British rock legends THE CULT, before all went quiet. Tragically, at this point, Holly’s ex-partner took her own life. “She was 23 when she’d had enough. I saw a frightened girl dangling above dangerous narratives, medicated up to the eye balls, drowned by the internet’s toxicity and hung out to dry in underfunded institutions.” For Holly, life changed forever. “This was the same week David Bowie left the earth. I remember that week being a real milestone that changed my perception of what's important.” One result of the aftermath of her friend's suicide was that Holly has become an ambassador for the mental health charity My Black Dog. “It's similar to The Samaritans, but the people you can call at the other end have been there, at the end of their tether. If she had had that,” Holly reflects, “a friendly stranger would have been so beneficial.” The career which began with such stellar promise suddenly unbegan. Fable became Holly again, took herself out of Brighton, out of music, and submerged herself in regular jobs and anonymous normality. She watched quietly from the shadows while other female artists, from Christine And The Queens to Billie Eilish, rose to prominence by exploring gender-fluid identities and moody electronica. In the wake of the tragedy in her personal life, reconnecting with her artistic muse took time. “The whole thing was just so dramatically sad it forced me to take a break and do some digging in my soul garden. A few years later, my creativity came up with the flowers.” Fable’s second coming has been met with enthusiasm from tastemakers, including NME, 6Music, CLASH and The Independent, notably for the trip hop and neo soul blending ‘Orbiting’, which has racked up over a million streams, and the emotionally introspective ‘Womb’. Signed to Naim Records, the label wing of the award-winning premium audio brand, and an ambassador for mental health charity My Black Dog, she has recorded a debut album of genre-fluid, searingly honest and darkly beautiful music that spans from urgent post punk to introspective electronica, whilst posing questions that are both timely and personal, yet timeless.