FEATURE:
Modern-Day Queens
PHOTO CREDIT: Frances Carter
back up (that I originally entitled Modern Heroines), as there are some amazing women in modern music who I want to celebrate. Some of the finest artists of their generation. The first artist included in the revival is one of my favourites ever. Someone whom I have a lot of affection for. That is Yorkshire-born, London-based Billie Marten. People who read this blog know that her 2016 debut album, Writing of Blues and Yellows, is among my favourite ever. Definitely my top album of the 2010s. This year I think marks ten years since Martin was included in the longlist of the BBC Sound of… 2016 poll. She has been making music for quite a while now. She has a gorgeous new single out, Leap Year. Het upcoming album, Dog Eared, is out on 18th July. A ten-track album, its three singles – Leap Year, Feeling and Crown – prove it is among Billie Marten’s strongest work to date. Only twenty-five years old, this remarkable artist has achieved so much already. She is busy touring this year. Next month, she starts a run of U.S. shows at First Avenue in Minneapolis. She is going to be in the U.K. later in the year. There is so much to love and admire about Billie Marten. Make sure you pre-order the amazing Dog Eared. I am a huge fan so cannot wait for this album. For this feature, and for those who maybe do not know Billie Marten, I am going to bring in some interviews. One is from 2023 and the other two are from 2024. Before that, go and follow her on Instagram. Before getting to those interviews, here is some information about the approaching Dog Eared:
“Billie Marten loves to leave her mark on a good book—underlining important passages, scribbling ideas in the margins, folding the corners of pages into dog ears to mark her place. The 10 songs of Dog Eared serve that purpose, telling the story of who she was as she wrote and recorded it, cleaving her adolescence from her adulthood in order to move forward. She is the songwriter who finds wisdom in horses and encourages self-reflection while realizing she has barely begun her own. She is the singer who makes the chorus of “Goodnight Moon” as beautiful as a lunar corona and smartly lets dissonance slip between her voice and the band around her as she watches something she loves disappear during “Crown.” Marten is a consummate singer-songwriter who has dared to push beyond the limitations of that form and make a stunning record that marks a new page, suggesting what comes next through the strength and beauty of what’s right here”.
I am going to head back to 2023 and an interview Billie Marten had with The Line of Best Fit. Speaking about the astonishing Drop Cherries, It is particularly interesting when she talked about her songwriting and working method and how that changed for her fourth studio album. If you have not heard it then I would urge you to check it out. A sublime and beautiful work from one of the most distinct and consistently brilliant songwriters this country has ever produced:
“It’s called The Essence Game,” she explains from her London flat. “One person leaves the room and then they come back and ask the others questions to find out who this person is. Questions like, ‘If they were a flower, what flower would they be?’ It goes on for hours because you can get really into it, describing the true essence of someone and not the surface level. Basically, I think I've made an album based on the essence game.”
The album she’s talking about is Drop Cherries, Marten’s fourth record which is a collection of songs and fragments of memories that explore the different parts of her relationship. Things have been said at length about Marten’s evolution as an artist and her growth from her debut in 2016 to 2019’s Feeding Seahorses By Hand to her most recent record, Flora Fauna, in 2021. She’s dealt with the same things her counterparts have struggled with: self-doubt, forced creativity, and the attention span of today’s listeners in the world of TikTok and streaming. What’s plagued her most, though, is contorting herself and her music to be what others want to hear.
“I used to spend a lot of time comparing my songwriting style and how often I would do it,” she states. “I would feel like a fraud if I wasn't writing all the time, but then I would feel fraudulent because what I was writing wasn't very good. There has been so much alleviation for me on Drop Cherries because it really just came as it wanted to arrive over two years.”
“I used to spend a lot of time comparing my songwriting style and how often I would do it,” she states. “I would feel like a fraud if I wasn't writing all the time, but then I would feel fraudulent because what I was writing wasn't very good. There has been so much alleviation for me on Drop Cherries because it really just came as it wanted to arrive over two years.”
Taking the time to create work is something Marten doesn’t take for granted, given that her rise as an artist has been documented in its entirety online like a time capsule she’s always mirrored against. “Everything is permanent, everything is online, and you’re not even old enough to get a smear test,” she remarks. “When I look at my first album [Writing of Blues and Yellows], I really thought I was an adult and I wasn’t even a person yet,” she laughs. “If I was in any other life, I would just be beginning now. I feel comforted now that people trusted me [back] then. They clearly thought something was going to become good and allowed me to have this time to get to this point, which is very much a new beginning. I’ve been living at this weird turbo pace and now I’m learning to slow down.”
For Marten, slowing down means leaving London for Somerset and Wales to record alongside her co-producer Dom Monks throughout the late summer of last year. Drop Cherries isn’t a reinvention or a complete left turn from her previous albums. For a lot of artists, there seems to be a desire to mark every album with a new artistic statement; a desire to keep oneself shiny and fresh to stay relevant. But, like with the aforementioned pressure she once struggled with, Marten has let go of the inclination to reinvent herself to appeal and appease. Instead, she makes music the way she has from the start: writing as a way to make her feelings tangible.
The title Drop Cherries was first inspired by an old tale Marten heard from a friend prior to creating the album. In the tale, a gift of cherries is a declaration of love and affection. With that, Marten visualised “stamping blood-red cherries onto a clean, cream carpet,” a blank slate now stained with love. With that image, it’s easy to understand why Marten resonated with the story.
“It’s about looking at people in their simplest form. When I think of a friend, a colour or object comes to mind. This album was really my personal quest to find out the true essence of both myself and this person and our essence together, living as one, which I write about on ‘This Is How We Move’ and ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around Us.’ The album is categorised in four parts; the initial excitement and disbelief about finding something so beautiful, the mundanity of love, pushing away the negative thoughts and cyclical things, and finally arriving at the end. The first lyric on Drop Cherries is “Here as I am / like the toes on my feet,” which is basically me saying this is it, this is what you get, remarkably unremarkable. The final lyric [on the title track] is “I drop cherries at your door / when you ask for more / now I know what I’m here for.” I know what I was made to do, which is the ending of the album. The tone [of the title track] is me closing the chapter and finishing the book; it’s all I have to say on the matter”.
I cannot see any interview from this year yet. In the lead-up to Dog Eared coming out, there will be new stuff for sure. It is an exciting and busy time for her. With a load of tour dates around the world, Marten will be playing to thousands of fans. Someone who I have been a fan of since her debut album. I know she will be releasing so many more albums in years to come. I want to come to some interviews from last year. Starting out with Something You Said and their interview from December. This was ahead of some tour dates in New Zealand and Australia.
“You’re about to tour Australia and New Zealand for the first time! What are you most looking forward to?
I’m *really* looking forward to that. I’ve not so much as dipped a toe in the waters of that world so everything will be new to me; a real assault on the senses, especially given I’ll be coming straight from family Christmas and 2 or 3 degrees. I’m most looking forward to seeing New Zealand for the first time, and really sinking myself into the indigenous culture.
It’s a long old flight from the UK! Do you fly well? How are you going to spend your 24 hours on a plane?
I have spent what feels like half my life on planes, especially in the last couple of years, so I’ve somewhat perfected what one can achieve in economy class. I like to do this trick with my bag and tie it around the seat tray, then it’s a nice hold for my feet so I don’t get back ache. That’s my top tip. Also sweets, always bring sweets on a flight. I intend to watch the LOTR [Lord of the Rings] extended series, of course.
Last time we spoke was when Flora Fauna was coming out. Since then you’ve released the brilliant album, Drop Cherries. Is there another album in the works now?
I suppose always, which is a strange realisation that there’s never _not_ an album!
Tell us about your latest single, Crown…
Well I love it very much and it’s the first slice of my time spent in NYC this summer with the formidable Phil Weinrobe. He’s a special maker and capturer of music and it’s just such a joy to create with him. Crown sounds like a bouncy ball to me.
What are your plans for 2025, after you’ve been Down Under?
Very much getting over the beauty of that trip, I imagine. Also writing. Nesting. Getting ready to tour again.
Can you give us your recommendations from 2024? What have you been watching/listening to/reading?
Watching – I’ve been re-watching The Sopranos, so my walks around London are hallucinating New Jersey mafia scenes. So so good. I have a thing for vulnerable yet powerful male characters.
Listening – my friend Clara Mann is about to release the most beautiful and well made record. Check out her first few singles. There’s also an ABBA song (old) that I never knew about that I’m obsessed with called If It Wasn’t For The Nights. The chorus is HEARTBREAKING.
Reading – I’m soon to post my annual end of year book list, in the least pretentious way possible because it’s just random stuff I’ve read over the year. But a favourite from there would be Horse of Selene by Juanita Casey. A really beautiful Irish story and a great take on raw feminine strength and horses and the wildness of a landscape.
And finally… last time we spoke you said you’d got really into Line of Duty! Did you end up finishing the whole series and if so, what did you think of the finale? It was quite divisive…
Ha yes! I certainly did. And I remember feeling a little let down with the drama of it all, but, wow what a show along with Happy Valley!”.
I am finishing off with another interview from last December. Junkee spoke with Billie Marten about her then-latest single, Crown, and they looked back at Drop Cherries. An artist who makes music that is honest to her, I always love reading and hearing what Marten has to say. I am also looking forward to seeing what interviews come in promotion of Dog Eared. This is one of the most astonishing musicians I have ever experienced. If you have never heard her music then please do:
“But that tenderness is front and centre of her newest single ‘Crown’, which she wrote in her garden staring at her cat . “The cat sits in the shade/And I am not afraid of love,” she sings. The very same cat that makes an appearance during my Zoom interview with Billie. “He's a perpetual con artist,” she says. “He will act like he's a starving, malnourished animal, and he eats like a king. So he's dancing around me now, even though it's 9pm and he's had three meals already.”
The question I was going to ask Billie, before her definitely hungry cat jumped up on the table next to her, was what she was most looking forward to on her upcoming Australian tour. “I am so ready to go out there. I feel like I've waited my whole musical career to get to you.” And equally so, we’ve been waiting for her.
In terms of her new direction with music, Billie wanted ‘Crown’ to be an introduction to a “newish sound in quite a soft way.” “I feel like it's a good representation of what the album will sound like,” she says. “The vibe from a narrative point of view is always a continuation. I'm always an autobiographical writer, and I have only just realised that. In the past, I've sort of felt pressure to or felt self indulgent with it, and I think that's something a lot of artists sort of carry with them, but I'm flipping that narrative for myself and just reminding myself that there's nothing else I can do. When I try to write like another person, it doesn't work.”
Ultimately, Billie just seeks to be honest with her music, and in turn, with us. “Perhaps that’s why shows have become so lovely, and relationships with fans have [too] in some cases. It's really kind of intertwined, and I know that with the amount of work that's out there now, people have had enough life to live with the music. So there's quite profound relationships with the songs, which is a blessing.”
“[‘Crown’] was written quite quickly, between touring Drop Cherry stuff, and it was certainly recorded before I was ready. I did it in July, and we did it in about, I think about six days. It's all completely live. And because of that, there's a new feeling that you can hear, and this sort of palpable… I don't know, it feels very tingly. I was talking to Phil [Weinrobe], the producer I've been working with, and we cannot figure out what this album sounds like. The only thing I can give to you is that in my head, it sounds like a lava lamp.” That might just be my favourite way to describe an album. “I want one,” she adds. “I'm gonna get one in commemoration of the album.”
Billie, who’s been releasing music for almost a decade now, has noticed herself evolve and mature as an artist. For her, creating music is cyclical. “For me it tends to be that you're in the album presence every two years, and it feels very much to me, like a natural cycle,” she says. “We think about the leaves on the trees. It’s very much that feeling for me. And by the time an album comes out, I've shed every leaf possible and there’s nothing left. I am a wooden husk, and then I'm ready to start rebuilding and soak the sun in. And what a lame analogy. It's late.”
Lame analogy or not, it’s still a beautiful way to think about making music. You can tell that Billie pours all of herself into her albums. That’s probably why they feel so personal. And probably why Billie focuses all her attention on one song at a time. “I'm always just trying to write one song, and I won't stop until I write that song,” she says. “I don't know what that is. I think everybody wants a personal statement creatively. I'm just on my daily adventure, looking to find out what that is. And I'm certainly still in the early stages of life, but having lived a stupid amount already feels like I am relieving some of that pressure to find out the answer, you know? So I suppose the mood on this next album sort of reflects that, and it's lighter and it's more about the instrumentation and the lyrics were sort of subconscious and free-flowing. And I think that's a really good way to get stuff out and you figure out what it means after you've written it.”
I’ve always loved to think of albums as time capsules of where the artist was at that time in their lives. And that’s how Billie thinks of her albums too. “You have certain feelings attached with each album,” she says. “And regardless of what it sounds like, it’s a very immediate gut feeling. The first one, I'm really fond of that time. I was really lucky and grateful that I managed to make an album at 17. I think it's a really good document for me when I become an older woman to look back on. That teenage diary, essentially, was documented right then and there. Then the second one, I definitely struggled with the industry, and I struggled with just everything in life. I'd moved to London and obviously left school and was sort of feeling a bit rudderless. I think that's a definite theme in that album. I was not happy. Someone in their early 20s [being unhappy] is a really common feeling, and I'm glad I was a lot braver then than I am now to sort of expel that sadness and grief and sort of raw emotion.”
“Then the third one I just sort of went a bit mad, and we made an album. Rich Cooper and I, who worked on the first one with me, and a song called ‘Mice’ as well, which is one of my favourites and always will be. We worked together in lockdown and I think we got a bit excited about making the largest sound we could with two people, and I was sort of getting a bit more into the social, cultural aspects of writing and having a bit more of a voice to share. And then the fourth was very much, I've said this before, but it really felt like my third album, and it was the album I thought I was making when I was 17, but I was so not ready or capable or equipped to make an album like that.”
Billie’s music made me think that she’s always been so sure of her emotions and in tune with herself, but according to Billie, that wasn’t always the case. “I felt very alone in teenagehood,” she says. “And going through puberty was weirdly difficult for me, and I couldn't find a voice and I certainly found that in music.” But what she couldn’t find within herself, she found in other artists. “The aspects I was looking for I found in the introspective, sort of tortured artists, Nick Drake being one of them. John Martyn was a biggie. That's why my last name is Marten. I just took somebody else's name and changed a letter and thought, ‘Let's go with that”.
On 18th July, Dog Eared arrives. Billie Marten’s fifth studio album is going to be one you will not want to miss out on. Ten years ago, Heavy Weather was released. From her debut album, Writing of Blues and Yellows, it is a mesmeric track. Since then, her music has shifted and evolved but it remains as spellbinding and unique. With Leap Year out, proving that this is an artist in a league other own, I was keen to revisit her music for this feature. In the next instalment is Jorja Smith. Billie Marten is a simply phenomenal talent who is going to be making golden music for…
YEARS more.