Billie Marten: “I Can’t Get My Head Around” her.
Billie Marten opens for Half Moon Run following the release of her newest album, Drop Cherries.
photo by Katie Silvester.
If you’re looking to follow a young artist early in their predictably long and successful journey, 24-year-old Billie Marten is the perfect choice. The British singer-songwriter from Ripon just came out with her fourth LP, Drop Cherries, this past April. The album is natural, personal, and forgiving, embracing an unlikely mesh between divinity and humanity. Each song is unique but equally engaging, strangely all keeping in with their thematic title track, “Drop Cherries.” Following her North American Drop Cherries tour, Marten has been keeping herself busy opening for Canadian rock band Half Moon Run. On November 11th, they played at The Metro in Chicago, and as a huge fan of both live music and Billie Marten, I was extremely thrilled at the opportunity to attend and cover the concert.
The good thing about attending a concert for the opener rather than the main artist is that there was far less wait time. I didn’t even get a chance to groan and bond with the other concert goers about how painful my shoes were. Billie appeared on the stage swiftly and mystically, dressed casually and poised carefully. Opening with “Mice” off of her second LP Feeding Seahorses by Hand seemed to relax her, easing her into her set.“Mice” is a rather slow track, but instrumentally full and stylistically eminent. The drums are comfortably paced, the guitar faint but integral, and of course, Billie fades in with her familiar falsetto. It reminded me of a lullaby—like we were the babies and Billie was our mother, singing us into a state of hypnotization. It was apparent by the end of the song that Billie had effectively captured the attention of everyone in the audience. From there, it only got better.
“Toulouse,” “Crown,” and “Vanilla Baby” were, predictably, crowd pleasers. “Vanilla Baby” was actually the song that introduced me to Billie Marten years ago, so to hear it live was like stepping into a time machine. It was acoustically brilliant, each pick of the guitar resonant and as beautiful as her voice. Around the middle of her set she played her first song of the night from Drop Cherries - “This Is How We Move.” With the gorgeous guitar echoing throughout the room, the instrument would’ve been the star of the song had it not been for Marten’s vocals. Her voice was crystal clear and emotive. It was smooth like butter and viscous like water. The people next to me were silent and attentive, eyes transfixed on Marten’s gentle silhouette. “This Is How We Move” may not be catchy and upbeat, but it’s equally engaging and my personal favorite of the night.
Closing the show with “I Can’t Get My Head Around You,” the fourth track on Drop Cherries, seemed like the obvious choice. It’s the most streamed song on the album, and rhythmically the most upbeat. If any song was going to turn the audience into Billie Marten fans, it was this song. As I was standing in the crowd, I found my body involuntarily swaying and my head bobbing like a wave. It’s particularly drum heavy compared to her other songs, creating rhythmic buildup and tension. Her melodic vocals pierce through the air both lyrically and symphonically, from punctuated syllables to her trademark vocal flip humming. It was fun and folksy, and I knew from the looks on everyone’s faces that it was a crowd favorite. There was cheering; there was applause. All in all, a catchy song to pique interest and end the set.
I’ll admit, I was a little let down that the self titled track on Drop Cherries didn’t make the setlist. As an admirer of fingerpicking, the combination of sharp plucking of the guitar and her icy bittersweet vocals makes “Drop Cherries” feel like honey being poured down my ears. However, she more than made up for it with her brilliant return to the stage singing “Dreams” with headliner Half Moon Run. Fleetwood Mac’s sort of supernatural aura is one that I really envision for Marten, so to see her execute it was just a confirmation of her talent. It was fun, it was freeing, it was enjoyably flawed and flawless all the same.
photo by Katie Silvester.
Having been to a decent amount of concerts in my life, I’ve come to realize that not all artists are meant to perform. Perhaps I was too spoiled by Lana del Rey taking my concert virginity at the Hollywood Bowl when she brought out Jesse Rutherford and they sang “Daddy Issues.” Or maybe it was Harry Styles debuting his Fine Line album in 2019 when he brought out Stevie Nicks and they sang “Landslide.” Or maybe it was when I was stood at the barricade at an Alex G concert and he looked directly at me and winked—but that’s besides the point. Amidst all of the life-changing performances I’ve witnessed, there have also been those that I struggle to even remember. You can have millions of Spotify listeners and numerous chart toppers and become a shadow when you step onto the stage (*cough* *cough* Cigarettes After Sex). That’s not to say that I don’t have fun at any live music event I find myself at. I adore any opportunity to see and hear music in real-time. I would pay disgusting amounts of money to go back and see The Smiths, even if they simply coughed into the microphone and left. To me, it’s the desire to see such an artist again that defines their talent to perform. I don’t want to feel satisfied at the end of a concert. I want that gut wrenchingly inescapable feeling that I need to relive that experience at least once more in my life. I want to want more.
And with that being said, Billie Marten left me wanting more. Maybe not in a life-transformative, “my life will never be the same” kind of way. I was satisfied and quite content with the way I’d spent my Saturday night. And still, I couldn’t help but think about how I would have loved to see Marten during her North American Drop Cherries tour. I caught myself looking up her further tour dates, disappointed that she was returning to the UK. Billie Marten is the type of artist that you see once and it’s not enough, especially if you only got seven songs to taste. “Acid Tooth,” “Nothing But Mine,” “Arrows,” and of course, “Drop Cherries” are my personal favorites that I wish I could’ve seen live. However, more likely than not, I’ll get my chance to live out that fantasy. I’d love to see her continue to perform Drop Cherries and incorporate more of it into her usual setlists. It’s an incredible LP, and it deserves to be showcased as such.
With her bleach blonde hair and mystically airy voice, Marten’s style and visage remind me a lot of an early Phoebe Bridgers. They both live in a bubble of admiration, each note resonating from their mouths as delicate as a baby flower. You want to look, but not touch, and if you do touch, you do so as if you’re stroking a stingray - gently with two fingers. Further comparable is their ability to sound just as good, if not better, live than in the studio. Performing live is like putting yourself under a microscope. Everyone can hear every misstep, every voice crack, every note that’s not sung with absolute confidence. But Marten thrives at the opportunity to sing into a microphone. Her voice is categorized by a narrow breathiness that is emphasized and amplified at larger volumes, coddling each syllabic accentuation and wave of vibrato through the air and directly into the ear of the listener. She’s far from a power vocalist, but when she sings, she is all-consuming. It consumes us; it consumes her.
There is so much more to be said about Billie Marten, though most of it can be understood by just going and listening to her music. You can tell that she consumes music as much as it consumes her. As I sit here currently listening to “God Above,” I can’t help but feel as if Marten is referring to herself. She is the God above, with her “golden hair.” “And she’s everywhere; and she’s everywhere.”
edited by Joseph Mooney, Editor-in-Chief.
photos by Katie Silvester.