Billie Marten delivers a sonic feast with ‘Flora Fauna’
Billie Marten weaves spellbinding tales of nature and life in her third album
Photo: Katie Silvester
As I listen to Billie Marten’s music for the first time, I realize that my senses are in for a musical treat. Not only am I listening to her music, but she takes me on a journey through her vivid imagery, as I can feel and imagine every experience she paints in her songs.
Ever since she was discovered on YouTube at the age of twelve, she has been busy delicately weaving minimalist folk music with her signature silky vocals and rhythmic guitar, leaving your soul wanting more.
Her previous two albums Writing Of Blues And Yellows (2016) and Feeding Seahorses By Hand (2019) are both brilliant but cautious records, exploring emotions on the surface but never opening up to them.
In Flora Fauna, Marten bares her soul.
Marten’s third full-length album Flora Fauna is an immersive record, with a collection of songs that embodies her lyrical genius and a strong foundation of bass and rhythm. She rediscovers her identity; finding new independence as she sheds her old self — just like nature.
On this record, the British singer-songwriter renounces her lyrical storytelling with colourful guitar but finds new wisdom and maturity through her metaphors of nature and richer instrumentation. There is a sense of newfound freedom that seeps through the record, perhaps the result of leaving Sony in 2019 and going back to her indie roots, paving way for creative evolution.
In Flora Fauna, Marten breathes the earth. She quite literally smears her face with dirt on the album cover. No matter how you choose to look at this image, you can’t take your eyes off her glistening eyes and devilish smile promising a record that is mesmerizing, free-spirited and soulful. You’ll still hear her signature hushed vocals and floaty tones of the acoustic guitar, but this record is much more. She uses the bass guitar to add a rhythmic layer of grunge and punch to her classic acoustic folk sounds to create an intrinsic soundscape.
Lead single Garden of Eden opens the album with a springy bass and drums building suspense as Marten dwells on the human nature of self-neglect — to constantly compete to be better; how we are too busy to keep pushing that we forget to live. “Eat the sun and water up / To be someone / Can’t get enough / I... Wanna feel alive / Garden of eternal sunshine,” she sings, using nature as a metaphor that we need to be fed and watered to evolve, to feel alive.
Creature of Mine is perhaps the most striking single from this record. It instantly won my heart over, as it will do yours. There is an unsettling melancholy that intertwines with Marten’s lush vocals and gentle rhythm. Marten describes the song as a post-apocalyptic situation where you get to choose one person to leave Earth with.
“I’m choosing you because you tell me my worth.”
This is a love song to a stranger. In the dreamy music video directed by Joe Wheatley, we see Marten row into the sunset, an abstract and beautiful representation of the song itself.
The third and final single Human Replacement presents a different side to Billie Marten. She reflects her angst with the world, conveying the absurdity of how women can’t go out at night without the fear of danger lurking around the corner.
“You’re just not safe in the evening / Walking around, you could be taken,” her voice resonates as the drums and bass riffs evoke movement and change. The track stands out not only for its powerful soundscape but because Marten takes ownership of her image.
In the accompanying music video, Marten smears war paint, travels in a tank to a local grocery store in full combat gear for a simple pint of milk. In yet another collaboration with director Joe Wheatley, Marten delivers stunning visuals in the video representing a caricature of our patriarchal society.
By the time Liquid Love comes up, we are put into a state of trance. The floaty tones will linger in your mind long after. You can’t help but hum alongside Marten’s pure and hypnotic voice.
“I kiss the lips of every sun coming / Wanting to wake up as a human every morning.”
Beautiful vocal layerings coupled with gentle drum loop and keys will feel like honey that serves as a breezy ode to celebrating one’s body.
This soothing track paves way for Heaven, though sweet, it carries a certain bitterness. The fuzzy synth and fascinating guitar tones will accentuate her striking storytelling. Marten sings of dreaming about heaven — a place that’ll greet you happily and until then “give my body patience to be free”. She realizes she is good enough and that we all deserve love.
Heaven is glorious, it’s lyrical bliss.
This record will constantly surprise you; just when you’re about to shed tears over a song, Marten will instantly alter your mood with another.
It’s truly an emotional rollercoaster once you’ve made it past Ruin. Her stripped vocals will greet you: “Baby, I’m just a ruin / And I am ruinous.” She is in a war with herself, the bare reality of human nature. The alt-rock chorus confesses her self-loathing, her airy falsetto takes over, breathing life into this piece.
A gifted storyteller, Marten creates vivid images through her simple words. She bottles life and its experiences into her music. Even something as tragic as seeing a one-legged pigeon in London can spark an idea for a song.
The singer addresses the discontent caused by living in this materialistic world on Pigeon. “Another day on modern Earth / Suffocating all our worth” — she captures man’s mundane existence in the modern world. We can feel her anger at the roots of this track, but her gorgeous harmonies with minimal production deliver a sense of comfort.
Kill The Clown is a musical escapade. It feels it came right out of a score for a film where the character is on a journey to self-discovery. She once again lyrically paints a scene for her listeners:
“After all, I am not a baby doll / I’ve got bills to pay and they never go away… I see everything in colour / And I'm done with that”
Her addiction to soaring strings and harmonized hums is evident in Kill The Clown where she sets new boundaries for her music. It will be yet another favourite from this brilliant record.
Walnut serves as an epilogue to Flora Fauna. Silken harmonies, strings follow suit, the downtempo hits in the minor key. Marten’s voice will haunt you as she delves into the forbidden nature of love and nature itself, how it is a constant struggle to love that you never realize.
“Forbid every move we make / Love is never ours to take… But, oh, to dance around you / Fruit of Eden’s Tree”
Throughout this album, Marten juxtaposes the hopeless city life with the magical imagery of nature.
It all comes full circle on Aquarium. She refers to gardens as “The place I am cradled from the chaos”. It mirrors her feeling from the first piece of the record “Garden of eternal sunshine”. Traces of nostalgia emits through her signature dreamy tones, Marten doesn’t completely let go of her older self. She speaks of the human nature of dependency and counting on friends and lovers: “I need friends and I want lovers / Couldn’t count on any others,” she sings as she matures into the adult world.
In Flora Fauna, we witness the rebirth of Billie Marten with music that is pure, riveting and unpredictable. Marten builds a soundscape based on something that is familiar to every human: nature. She explores mankind’s vulnerability through honest emotions and even twisted thoughts. She bares her soul for all of us.
Though every piece on this record has experimented with distinct styles of production, when stripped to the bare bones, every track beautifully precedes the other. The lyrics and music harmoniously bind together.
Flora Fauna is a brilliant work of music, so much so that you wouldn’t realise when the album begins to loop. You’ll never want it to end.
Flora Fauna is Billie Marten’s truest rendition of herself, in that you’ll find peace and retrieve your lust for life. I’ll leave you on that note.
Flora Fauna is out now via Fiction Records.