[Cover photo credit to Katie Silvester]
UK-based artist Billie Marten has released her new album Drop Cherries via Imperial Music. To coincide with the release, Marten has also shared Drop Cherries: The Film, directed by Joe Wheatley.
The video was performed live in one take in a mid-century home in rural Nottinghamshire, alongside musicians from the album recording. Drop Cherries: The Film premiered last Thursday at Close-Up Cinema in London, alongside a Q&A with Marten and Wheatley. Billie Marten is also embarking on a headline North American tour this June.
Recorded entirely on tape in Somerset and Wales late last summer, Drop Cherries marks the very first time that Billie Marten has both written and co-produced (with Dom Monks) one of her records. The project follows 2021 album Flora Fauna, as well as previous releases Feeding Seahorses by Hand (2019) and Writing of Blues and Yellows (2016).
For Marten, this project has encouraged her to trust her own instincts:
When I’m trying to write, the creative door is closed most of the time. When it briefly opens, I know I’ve stumbled across moments of true emotion and insight; they give no warning and are often unpredictable. I can’t force the process, something I’m realizing more with each album. And that’s why I know that ‘Drop Cherries’ is a collection of songs expressing genuine intuitive feeling.
The title is taken from a tale she heard from a friend just before she was starting to create songs for the album, and the title track came soon after. It’s a metaphor where the gift of cherries stands for “offering someone your love; doing anything you can to make them happy.”
Marten adds:
Dropping cherries is such a strong, visceral image that I tried to channel throughout recording in Somerset and Wales, to capture the vibrancy, unpredictability, and occasional chaos one experiences within a relationship. Imagine stamping blood-red cherries onto a clean, cream carpet and tell me that’s not how love feels.
Drop Cherries is a series of vignettes highlighting “different pieces of a relationship, while trying to fit them together.”
Billie Marten Live Dates:
June 6 Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy Theatre
June 7 San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
June 9 Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
June 11 Portland, OR @ McMenamins Mission Theater
June 13 Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
June 14 Denver, CO @ Globe Hall
June 16 Minneapolis, MN @ 7th St Entry
June 17 Chicago, IL @ Lincoln Hall
June 20 Toronto, ON @ TD Music Hall
June 22 New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
June 23 Boston, MA @ The Sinclair
June 24 Washington, DC @ Union Stage
