Billie Marten on Finding Her Voice in Her New Record Drop Cherries
I’ve never written a piece about an artist before. And if I’m being honest, this was actually my first time coming across Billie Marten’s music. But as soon as I listened to her most recent EP, I was hooked. Her voice was like a warm cup of tea on a chilly evening, and her mellow energy is captured perfectly in the “Liquid Love” music video as she bathes under the sun with her friends while gently humming “I am free, pourin’ / No destination / Liquid love under my skin”. From binge watching her interviews (totally for research purposes only), she struck me as someone who is incredibly introspective and approachable.
Needless to say, I was eager to give her new album, Drop Cherries, a listen when she released it on April 7th. Billie describes the album as “a series of vignettes highlighting different pieces of a relationship, while trying to fit them together.” The record explores a range of intimate snapshots, “from celebrating moments of the mundane, through deep existential questioning, to the final resolve which is the pure simplicity of sharing a moment with someone you love.”
Meeting Billie is everything you’d imagine it would be. Her eyes are ocean blue but her gaze is warm and mannerisms elegant. She looks like she appeared straight out of a painting. But it wasn’t just her beauty and 90s-inspired style that I was in awe of. She was eloquent, taking the time to find the right words for every inquiry.
She made it easy to feel her sincerity through the screen. In fact, when I asked her about the narrative of this new record, she hesitated for a moment but candidly confessed that she was not the most authentic in her preceding album, Flora Fauna. “Well …I think I still wasn’t being honest in my last album in terms of processing what I was feeling and getting over those [sad] depictions of myself. I was very much still in this self-loathing era and battling with self-trust. And the narrative in [Drop Cherries] is much more, kind of, stable. So it’s a real joy to get to have this new tone.”
I was taken aback by her response because it was truly refreshing hearing someone I admire feel so comfortable with being vulnerable. I’m sure that feeling of realizing we hadn’t actually moved on as much as we set out to is something a lot of us can relate to. We can all give ourselves more grace the way Billie did herself.
Now that Billie has taken more time to heal, she proudly expresses that Drop Cherries is her most authentic record yet. I could tell what she meant after listening to her records back to back. While the instrumentation remains similar, her songs have shifted from notes of melancholy to her basking in the beauty of the love and pain that comes with romantic relationships. This shift is reflective of many artists, including Lauv and EDEN, who have also begun writing music that is less self-victimizing and more empowering.
Billie reflects on the importance of having a close circle of unequivocal supporters in her life leading up to the release of Drop Cherries: friends and family who know her outside of being an artist. “I think those are the people you really need to keep close …They don’t care what sort of state you’re in or how successful you’re being or how happy you are around them.” Yep, I have to agree. We all need people who are not only there to celebrate our successes, but also there to care for us when we are experiencing creative burnout or hard times.
Billie kindly asks that her listeners appreciate the record in its entirety and listen to the songs in order. Since the interview, I have only grown more fond of her work. She has certainly gained a new fan here at Rebelle. I urge you to give her music a listen—there’s a good chance you will become a fan, too!
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