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Billie Marten’s Drop Cherries is a quiet love story. A romance hidden in nature. In her words, “it’s for anyone who didn’t think that love existed, ’cause I certainly didn’t.”

Released in April 2023 via Fiction, the North Yorkshire artist’s fourth album returns to her folk roots and the evolutionary journey she has taken on the way. We were lucky enough to talk with Billie about Drop Cherries at a recent press conference, where she discussed the inspirations behind the album, the recording processes, and more.

I have greatly admired Billie since I first discovered her music. It became my soundtrack for growing up in the Lancashire countryside. This album makes me reminisce on the past and long for the future, with a similar sense of growth so palpable you can almost touch it.

When asked about staying true to her artistic vision, Billie described the difficulty of doing so in a constantly evolving industry. “Often, you can feel like your music isn’t perhaps as relevant as it was on day one, especially if you’re not a brand new artist. So I think it’s harder to have a voice, but I think that’s something one puts on oneself, and it’s important to shed that…if you’re going for longevity, little will occur to deter you from that.”

It’s clear after listening to the album that Billie remains undeterred from portraying her vision for these works.

She begins the story of Drop Cherries with ‘New Idea,’ an instrumental named after the throwaway title she first wrote down on her laptop. It’s a two-part harmony motif that appears simple at a glance but tells a story that becomes familiar throughout the album. The piece builds like a film scene, introducing us to a quiet longing and evolving into the sounds of springtime and hopefulness. The violins begin with soft, staccato movements, and as the mood of the melody changes, they grow into a soaring chorus. Billie seems to tell us everything she wants to say on this album without saying a word.

In ‘God Above,’ Billie personifies the beauty of a feminine God with jazz-infused melodies and an airy rhythmic accompaniment. There is an element of live performance at the forefront of this piece, emulated by the single ‘Nothing But Mine.’ This is something that Marten continues to exemplify in her work; the sonic authenticity of the album was achieved by recording it entirely on tape. I was able to ask her more about this process and if she would continue to record this way:

“I would most definitely would do it again, I think it’s the way forward, it’s how music should be recorded… I also recorded the second album on tape, but it was a smaller version on a 4 track machine… this time we didn’t even question it.

I think it makes performances shine, it makes music much less static and flat…I think you can get caught in modern music in this chasm of eternal takes and layering – you end up with something that sounds like a full song but it’s not necessarily a performance, I think that element of modern music is lacking right now.”

Track 4 formally introduces us to Billie’s muse. ‘Just Us’ portrays her love as something simple but fundamental to herself and her surroundings.

“Your legs stick out like sycamore trees / I feel them grow when we’re asleep”

When asked if it was easier to write about a muse, Billie described how muses can take many forms and that this theme was something she had actively wanted to talk about for a while.

“I think I wanted more control in many ways on this album, and in doing that my muse was something that only I had experienced, but it also became a very communal feeling.”

I was lucky enough to hear some of ‘Willow’ before its release, and it has stuck with me since then. Billie’s writing is self-referential here, as similarly to ‘Just Us,’ she uses the metaphor of a tree’s growth to emphasise the naturalness of her relationship.

“Two weeping willows, throwing an arm to the other”

This theme continues on track 7, ‘I Bend To Him’:

“When all the leaves have blown down from the trees / Please, with every limb / I bend to him”

The story of this album is elevated further by the simplicity and specific use of colour in the visuals. Photographed by Katie Silvester, Billie discussed the shots used for singles like ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’ and ‘This Is How We Move’:

“It needed to be something that was powerful in its lack of substance. Which is kind of what this album is, it’s all about the power of silence and not speaking when you don’t have to, and not having to fight over sound.”

When discussing the album art, Billie said:

“It was actually one of the first pictures we took of the shoot, we got into this blue room and it was immediately kind of what the album looked like.”

‘This Is How We Move’ was the first single released for Drop Cherries. It sums up the overarching theme of the album: allowing love to change your life, and accepting the parts of yourself that you previously buried. Billie describes the simple, but often painful act of allowing yourself to evolve – succinctly stating: “this is how we move”.

The titular song closes the album, and wouldn’t suit any other position on the track list. She described the imagery of the title in a press release, saying: “imagine stamping blood-red cherries on to a clean, cream carpet and tell me that’s not how love feels”. Something that has always stuck out to me about Billie is her ability to mirror lyrical intention through guitar; the concluding track does just that. As the 3/4 rhythm is played behind swirling romantic sentiments, you feel as though you’re waltzing across a carpeted living room. Drop Cherries embodies the quintessential elements of Billie’s sound; pulling sonic themes from her past works whilst walking us down new avenues. When discussing the links between Billie’s last album, Flora Fauna, and Drop Cherries, she described them as “completely disparate and opposite…

but there’s a song called aquarium which finishes the last album which is super defeatist and I wrote it in a really bad place, I remember pinpointing that moment and making sure I didn’t write that again:

“I’m too bold without them, I’m too cold without them,”

which was very much me not being able to rely on people and not being able to be vulnerable in any way, even though I was at my most vulnerable state. And now the first lyrics of this album are “here as I am like the toes on my feet.” Kind of plain and simple, you know, you’ll take what’s given, this is me in my truest form. And then the album finishes with,

“Now I know what I’m here for.”

Billie describes washing her hair with “that jam jar on the side there”. I imagine this is the jar in which the cherries reside. It only makes sense that she closes out the record by bathing herself in the quiet romance that is Drop Cherries.

“Paint me in the red / Pages curling in the wet.”

Listen to Drop Cherries here:

Watch Drop Cherries: The Film