More about: Billie Marten

Billie Marten certainly is an artist with a quietly-earned reputation; if you’re in the mood for a lush and layered album to light a stick of incense and relax in the bath too, look no further than Marten. Her third album Flora Fauna fits incredibly into this mould, not ripping apart the tried-and-tested recipe, but merely adding new ingredients into it. It’s no bold reinvention, but Marten gracefully comes into her own on this record as a songwriter and performer. 

The melodies Marten made her name from still remain, however backed by a solid rhythm section of scintillating bass and subtly powerful drums. Flora Fauna instantly gains points on grounds of experimentation, with the plodding stomps of ‘Ruin’ and distinct groove of opening track and lead single ‘Garden of Eden’ instantly cocooning themselves into the listener’s memory. Perhaps in an earlier incarnation, songs such as ‘Liquid Love’ might have been arranged with a more folk sound in mind, yet it arrives as a dreampop daydream on album 3.0. The echoes to Marten’s past are still there; the stream-of-consciousness lyrics of ‘Pigeon’ are backed by a gentle, if forgettable Joni Mitchell-esque acoustic lullaby. 

Lyrically, Marten tilts her pen towards crafting a more societal album, and it works wonders. “Nature of the human race, everything will be replaced” she croons on ‘Garden of Eden’, ruminating on our endless need to succeed and be complete, often before we’re ready. What we have here is a timely album for an angry and disaffected world; ‘Creature of Mine’ is a post-apocalypse tale with self-deprecating charm, whereas ‘Human Replacement’ carries its dark, heavy bassline with an equally heavy tone. “You're just not safe in the evening, walking around, you could be taken”; Marten paints a terrifyingly realistic picture of systemic male oppression that leaves women unable to walk alone at night under threat of abduction, assault or murder. ‘Human Replacement’, alongside its fantastically shot companion video, is a song that packs a powerful punch, a vital cry for equality in a patriarchal world.

Towards the end of the album, we get a surprise guest appearance from Guy Garvey on ‘Walnut’; to draw an obvious comparison, it sounds like it could have been an Elbow deep cut in another life, with the textured strings and delicate vocal melodies. ‘Kill the Clown’ has an intensely chamber-pop aura to it, and ‘Aquarium’ is a gorgeous closer that wraps up the album perfectly. Whilst Flora Fauna certainly has peaks and troughs, it is the sound of an artist solidifying herself, her identity and keenly gazing towards the future. In an interview to promote the album’s release, Marten admitted that her substituting the acoustic for the bass guitar was due to a drunken purchase. If only all drunken purchases sounded this lovely. 

 Flora Fauna arrives 21 May via Fiction Records.

More about: Billie Marten