BILLIE MARTEN: 'FLORA FAUNA' ALBUM REVIEW

Billie Marten’s abundant third album, ‘Flora Fauna’, is a brilliant expression of personal growth bathed in natural imagery.

Image Credit: Katie Silvester

North Yorkshire born and raised, Billie has long felt connected to nature, describing it as “a very comforting blanket. It cradles you, it’s always there. It’s not going away”. This influence is crystal clear throughout ‘Flora Fauna’; across 10 tracks we are taken on an urgent, bright, blooming journey through a garden, at the end of which we breathe fresh air again. 

First single ‘Garden of Eden’ gives us a snapshot of things to come. In verses we see strong, clipped bass riffs and a narrative of pressure to grow and succeed, before the track opens into soaring choruses and a feeling of relief that comes with retreat into the “garden of eternal sunshine”. 

In ‘Creature of Mine’, the listener is comforted as horns wrap around pulsing drums and join honeyed vocals to give a sense of warmth that we feel in waves throughout the record. This warm haze is at its thickest within ‘Liquid Love’, a wander into a more electronic style for the artist. Rich, sweet, relaxed vocals are the focal point and this song has a pleasing lazy ease to it, best described in the chorus as “liquid love under my skin”. 

If ‘Liquid Love’ is intended to soothe, it comes at the right time following ‘Human Replacement’. This is one of the album’s heavier tracks, featuring intimate whispers and lurching strings that unsettle the listener, as Billie reflects on being a young woman living in London: “To put it simply, it’s about not being able to go outside at night, as a woman”. Life and consumerism in the capital city are also explored later in ‘Pigeon’, albeit with a more light-hearted hook - “I’m sick of branding and one-legged pigeons”. 

Image Credit: Katie Silvester

Human nature and the world at large are touched upon a number of times in the record, and with the song ‘Heaven’, Marten explores the need to look for faith through the lyrics “Am I good enough? / It’s all too much / I look above”. She says of writing the track, “I think about it a lot - aspects of your conscience, that voice in your head, and what that is. It’s interesting how people live their lives, and if they expect to be saved”. 

For this record Billie reunited with producer Rich Cooper to explore influences ranging from Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake to Arthur Russell. Unpredictable progressions and twanging riffs shine in the tracks ‘Ruin’ and ‘Kill the Clown’, which are reminiscent of early noughties work of influences such as Fiona Apple. Of the production process, Marten has said:

“It was such freedom to play, and just be, and explore different corners of me that I hadn’t before”

Flora Fauna ends with ‘Aquarium’, which brings us back to basics with an acoustic guitar and a stirring vocal. The song looks back at where we began, “cradled from the chaos”. At this point, after a period of space and reflection, Billie sings “I am too cold without them / I need friends and I need lovers / couldn’t count on any others”. The closing track sweetly reminds us that although we may need our space, ultimately we need connection to make it through. 

Here we have an artist who has evolved to a confident sound that enriches their previously quiet acoustic folk with punchy bass and unexpected rhythms. With ‘Flora Fauna’, Billie Marten shares what she calls “a green bath for the eyes”, and flourishes in doing so.