Billie Marten Shares ‘i Can’t Get My Head Around You’
BILLIE MARTEN
SHARES ‘I CAN’T GET MY HEAD AROUND YOU’
BRAND NEW TRACK TAKEN FROM UPCOMING ALBUM DROP CHERRIES - OUT 7 APRIL ON FICTION RECORDS
NEW UK & NORTH AMERICAN HEADLINE TOUR ON SALE NOW - INCLUDING LONDON LAFAYETTE (26 & 27 MAY)
Listen to ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’ HERE
Watch the ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’ video HERE
Preorder Drop Cherries HERE
Billie Marten has today shared ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’, a brand new track taken from her upcoming fourth record Drop Cherries - out 7 April via Fiction Records. ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’ received its radio debut this morning on Lauren Laverne’s BBC Radio 6 Music show this morning.
Marten will embark on a headline UK and North American tour beginning in May that includes a double date at London’s Lafayette on 26 & 27 May. Tickets for all shows are available HERE.
Marten explains of ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’: “This is very much a cruiser. One to turn up really loud on the long drive out of town or back home. I wrote the chorus way before the verse, had it for months and whenever I'd pick up a guitar it would reappear. The sentiment expresses a deep sense of homecoming, arrival at where you'd like to be, and also a slight implausibility of discovering a new era of gladness. I truly adore the band's playing on this, so sweet, so natural, so alive.”
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; following critically-lauded 2021 album Flora Fauna, Feeding Seahorses by Hand (2019) and Writing of Blues and Yellows (2016). Preorder Drop Cherries HERE.
Drop Cherries’ lead single ‘This Is How We Move’ debuted in January and another track ‘Nothing But Mine’ arrived last month, with support streaming in from the likes of Brooklyn Vegan, DIY, Dork, The Independent, The Line Of Best Fit, Stereogum, and more. ‘This Is How We Move’ and ‘Nothing But Mine’ also received widespread national radio play from Lauren Laverne, Chris Hawkins and Steve Lamacq at 6 Music, Sian Eleri and Jack Saunders at BBC Radio 1 and Dermot O’Leary at BBC Radio 2.
Flora Fauna was lavished with praise by the likes of CLASH (9/10), The Line Of Best Fit, Uncut, NME, Dork, The Independent, Gigwise (all 4* reviews) as well as The Sunday Times Culture and DIY in 2021. The record also landed multiple radio playlists at national broadcasters Radio 1 (twice Hottest Record in the World for ‘Creature Of Mine’ and ‘Human Replacement’), 6 Music (including a string of A List records) and Radio X.
With a fourth record looming over her, Billie Marten at last learned to stop thinking about what others want to hear and finally started to trust her own instincts. “When I’m trying to write, the creative door is closed most of the time,” she says. “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 realising 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. “Dropping cherries,” she begins, “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. From celebrating moments of the mundane (‘Just Us’), through deep existential questioning (‘Devil Swim’, ‘Acid Tooth’, ‘Arrows’), to the final resolve which is the pure simplicity of sharing a moment with someone you love (‘Drop Cherries’, ‘I Bend To Him’).
It’s often the case that each record has to be a new ‘statement’ for the artist, a re-branding, a progression. But Billie Marten’s statement is always the same: “I’m simply searching for clarity. I’m re-examining the same feelings I had when I first started writing: I feel different to others, so I’ll write about what that’s like and see if I can work out why that is.”
“If I ever do, maybe I’ll stop writing.”
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See Billie Marten live in 2023:
13 May | Deers Head, Belfast
16 May| Gorilla, Manchester
17 May | Thekla, Bristol
20 May | Brudenell, Leeds
22 May | Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
23 May | The Cluny, Newcastle
24 May | St Lukes, Glasgow
26 May | Lafayette, London
27 May | Lafayette, London
8 Jul | Crystal Palace Park, London^
^supporting The Lumineers
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Billie Marten - Drop Cherries - out 07/04/2023 via Fiction Records
