Billie Marten: Ripon singer-songwriter in full bloom on third album Flora Fauna and at secret Harrogate gig with a full band. PIcture: Katie Silvester
WHAT else do culture vultures Graham Chalmers and Charles Hutchinson cram into Episode 57 of Two Big Egis In A Small Car?
How about Blade Runner and where next for billionaires in space?
What’s going on with Covid passports and arts venues?
What can the arts expect from novel Tory Culture supremo Nadine Dorries?
What is the future for album covers?
What was CH’s verdict on Tonderai Munyevu’s Mugabe, My Dad And Me at York Theatre Royal, The Woman In Black at the reopened Grand Opera House, York, and the pie-laden Waitress at Leeds Grand Theatre?
How does it feel to face up to the questions for the revived People We Love exhibition, soon to return to York Minster.
Billie Marten: Playing with a full band at Leeds Brudenell Social Club tonight
RIPON singer-songwriter Billie Marten plays Leeds Brudenell Social Club with a full band tonight, her career in full bloom with the May release of her third album, Flora Fauna.
Setting out on the road for an 18-date headline tour on September 16, she is promoting new single Liquid Love, a song accompanied by her latest video collaboration with Joe Wheatley, director of her Creature Of Mineand Human Replacementvideos.
“This is my favourite of Joe’s visual trio,” says Billie. “Initially, I wanted the video to match the swirling, translucent watery-ness of Liquid Love, something meandering and dreamlike. I’d pictured blues and pinks, ripples, skin, wet hair and a visceral picture of real life.
“In the end, I think we – me and Joe – managed just that, through the sheer power of simplicity and understatement. It paints a natural tranquillity, using the tokens of community, friendship, family, love and warmth. All those things I was craving and pining for at the time of writing. It feels incredibly real to me as the song does too, and we weren’t acting, we were living.”
Born Isabella Sophie Tweddle on May 27 1999, she released her first EP, Ribbon, under the name of Billie Marten at the age of 15 in 2014, subsequently recording two albums for Sony/Chess Club Records, 2016’s Writing Of Blues And Yellows and 2019’s Feeding Seahorses By Hand.
Building on those minimalist acoustic folk foundations, she recorded her third album, Flora Fauna, with producer Rich Cooper in only ten days after picking up a bass guitar on a whim, duly creating a more mature record constructed on a backbone of bass and rhythm.
The artwork for Billie Marten’s Flora Fauna
Shedding the timidity of her past work in favour of more urgency, Billie’s latest songs mark a period of personal independence as she learned to nurture herself and break free from toxic relationships.
Returning to nature was important to her, in the wake of her move from North Yorkshire to London. “I wasn’t really treating myself very well; it was a bit of a disruptive time. All these songs are about getting myself out of that hole; they’re quite strong affirmations,” she says.
“The name Flora Fauna is like a green bath for my eyes. If the album was a painting, it would look like flora and fauna. It encompasses every organism, every corner of Earth, and a feeling of total abundance.”
Billie, 22, has lived in London for four years. “But Ripon still has a warm place in my heart; I miss it very much, and there’s family in Harrogate and Knaresborough, but the one thing it doesn’t have is a music scene, so it’s not very practical to be based there.
“Sadly too, Ripon Grammar School didn’t have a great music department, though it did have great science and engineering departments. I did study music at GCSE level; I got a B, I think, not that great! But I grew up in a musical family, so that was my start, listening to Bowie and Kate Bush, and my father played guitar.
“Bizarrely, my first gig was on a band stand when I was 12 or 13, when I borrowed my dad’s guitar that was far too large for me, and I just sang to my dad and the ice cream van.”
“After Fiction Records heard a couple of demos, they didn’t want to change anything about my songs,” says Billie Marten
That debut EP ensued at 15, released the day before she took her Maths GCSE. “For the photo they took, I smashed a glass because I was so nervous!” she recalls.
Billie signed to Sony at 16 but her subsequent experiences on the major label left her feeling like a “very small fish in a very large pool”. “I was never going to make the music they would have wanted me to make,” she says. “You’re not pushed, but maybe nudged, musically into areas you wouldn’t want to be: somewhere where I wouldn’t be comfortable, when I was the only old-school singer-songwriter, not deep pop or R&B act.
“All those people are trained up to scout for talent, but they see artists more as vessels for gradual change, rather than seeing you as yourself. But my father always said ‘take everything with a big bucket of salt’.”
Billie took the decision to seek new pastures. “The move to Fiction Records all came about deep into the first lockdown. Essentially, we met and signed on Zoom. All a bit mad,” she recalls. “Post Sony, I didn’t think anything would happen, but after Fiction Records heard a couple of demos, they didn’t want to change anything about my songs. I just felt accepted as I am and I feel very comfortable and natural working with this label.”
Cue Flora Fauna, an album with a delightfully alliterative title. “I’m very attracted to putting words together, and within those words, that is everything in the world: flora and fauna,” says Billie. “There you must accept who you are and find a place of solace.”
Billie Marten plays Leeds Brudenell Social Club tonight (24/9/2021), supported by Conchur; doors open at 7.30pm. Box office:brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
The vampire strikes back: Comedy troupe Le Navet Bete in Dracula: The Bloody Truth at York Theatre Royal
DRACULA at the double, Bull’s delayed album party, a burgeoning Ripon singer-songwriter, a talent showcase, a festival for the over-fifties, a Geordie podcast couple and a quick-witted Aussie catch Charles Hutchinson’s attention.
Family friendly Dracula? Yes, really, in Le Navet Bete’s Dracula: The Bloody Truth, York Theatre Royal, tomorrow and Saturday, 7.30pm
KINGS of comedy Le Navet Bete link up with Exeter’s Northcott Theatre to sink their teeth into Dracula: The Bloody Truth, mixing slapstick and crafted comedy with a healthy dose of things going wrong.
Penned and directed by Peepolykus’s John Nicholson, this “family friendly show” journeys from the sinister Transylvanian mountains to the awkwardly charming Yorkshire seaside town of Whitby.
Esteemed Professor Abraham Van Helsing and his three idiotic actors will try frantically to expose the truth behind Bram Stoker’s notorious novel and warn audiences of the real dangers of vampires. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
What’s Mina Harker’s viewpoint? Find out in Imitating The Dog’s Dracula: The Untold Story at Leeds Playhouse
Like buses, no Dracula for ages, then two come along in quick succession: Imitating The Dog/Leeds Playhouse in Dracula: The Untold Story, Leeds Playhouse, tomorrow until October 9.
DIRECTED by Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks, this chilling new reimagining of the classic gothic vampire tale is set in the 1960s and told from Mina Harker’s viewpoint.
Unfolding on stage as a live graphic novel, Leeds company Imitating The Dog utilise cutting-edge digital technology to engage with the dark landscape of Bram Stoker’s original, injecting it with renewed energy and political insight.
Dracula: The Untold Story “flips the page on our fascination with the most enduring manifestation of evil in literature”. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or at leedsplayhouse.org.uk.
At last! Bull will hold their Covid-delayed album launch party at The Crescent tomorrow
Gig of the week in York: Bull, The Crescent, York, tomorrow, 7.30pm
THIS show is York band Bull’s debut album launch gig, and no bull.
Didn’t Discover Effortless Living have the misfortune to be released in the very early days of Lockdown 1 on March 26 2020? Indeed so, but casting the pandemic hiatus to one side, it is never too late to celebrate a York band signing to a major label – EMI Records – and so here comes the long-awaited party for Tom Beer, Dan Lucas, Tom Gabbatiss and Kai West.
Cue the York-grown joys of Disco Living, Green, Bonzo Please, Loo Goo, Eugene and plenty more bangers beside.
Billie Marten: Singer-songwriter will play with a full band at Leeds Brudenell Social Club
Gig of the week outside York: Billie Marten, Leeds Brudenell Social Club, tomorrow , doors at 7.30pm
RIPON singer-songwriter Billie Marten promotes her third album, Flora Fauna, and new single Liquid Love on tour in Leeds with a full band-line-up.
Built on her minimalist acoustic folk foundations, the London-based Marten’s first album for Fiction Records is fostered around a strong backbone of bass and rhythm as she sheds past timidity in favour of greater urgency.
Flora Fauna’s songs mark a period of personal independence for Marten as she learned to nurture herself and break free from toxic relationships, and a big part of that transition was returning to nature. Box office: brudenellsocialclub.co.uk.
After last year’s competition, here comes the celebration of Yorkshire’s blossoming acts
Showcase of the week: Yorkshire’s Got Talent – Live!, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, Sunday, 7pm
DANCE, comedy and a wide variety of music feature in this celebration of the best of Yorkshire’s young talent as judged by professionals and voted for by the public.
A thoroughly entertaining show bursting with joie de vivre is promised from these stars of the future in a fundraiser for the JoRo Theatre. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk.
Chris and Rosie Ramsey: From hit podcast to York Barbican live show
Visiting Geordies of the week in York: Chris & Rosie Ramsey, Shagged. Married. Annoyed, York Barbican, Tuesday, 8pm
FOR the first time ever, loveable Geordie duo Chris and Rosie Ramsey are bringing their hit podcast live to York for one show only, moved from June 16 to September 28.
Apparently, the only way the Ramseys can have a conversation without being interrupted by a small child or ending up staring at their phones is by doing a podcast, drawing 18 million downloads.
Now, comedian and 2019 Strictly competitor Chris and Rosie discuss life, relationships, arguments, annoyances, parenting, growing up and everything in between in front of a live audience.
Learning opportunity: An IT workshop at the York 50+ Festival
Festival of the week: York 50+ Festival, Saturday until October 3
The York 50+ Festival presents more than 80 events in a “fine way to shake off the gloom of Covid and join in either in person or by sharing online with people from all over the country and abroad”.
This is the 16th annual festival organised by YOPA (York Older People’s Assembly) and a small team of volunteers, offering social events and open days, talks, walks, sport and active leisure, workshops, classes and “chatty benches”.
The full programme can be found at yorkassembly.org.uk/50-festival and copies are available in all York libraries, community centres and around the city centre, plus at the YOPA office at Spark: York and the Tourist Information Centre, Museum Street.
Tim Minchin’s back…and Tim Michin’s Back is back for the Back Encore Tour 2021 at York Barbican
Look who’s Back: Tim Michin, Back Encore Tour 2021, York Barbican, October 19, 7.30pm
TIM Minchin, Australian comedian, actor and composer, is back with a new set of dates for his Back show, taking in York Barbican.
Billed as “Old Songs, New Songs, F*** You Songs”, the set list draws on material from all corners of Minchin’s eclectic – and often iconoclastic – repertoire.
Back was first performed in Great Britain in 2019 on Minchin’s first tour over here in eight years. Last November, he released his debut solo album, Apart Together. Tickets for the Back Encore Tour 2021 show go on sale today at yorkbarbican.co.uk.
“The general sentiment breeds happiness and optimism, which is something I wasn’t particularly familiar with thus far,” says Billie Marten of her single Garden Of Eden. Picture: Katie Silvester
RIPON singer-songwriter Billie Marten releases new single Garden Of Eden today, to be followed by third album Flora Fauna, her first for Fiction Records, on May 21.
Raised in the rolling hills of North Yorkshire on the songcraft of Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading and Kate Bush, Billie made her studio debut, Writing Of Blues And Yellows, at the age of only 17 in 2016.
Feeding Seahorses By Hand followed in 2019 and Garden Of Eden ends the recording silence since then, accompanied by a video created with Lydia Poole.
“It’s a song of growth and competition to evolve as individuals in an increasingly suffocating and vacuous society,” says Billie. “I liked the idea of humans growing up like tomatoes in the greenhouse, needing water and oxygen and space, but not getting any of it.
“The idea of seeking the natural elements and needing only that to survive plays into my constant dichotomy of living urban or bucolic. The choruses act as a burst of relief to allow space to breathe and to express that want of living right.
“The name Flora Fauna is like a green bath for my eyes,” says Billie Marten, introducing her new album
“This was one of the first pivotal songs for me as the general sentiment breeds happiness and optimism, which is something I wasn’t particularly familiar with thus far.”
Recorded with Rich Cooper in London, Flora Fauna blends Billie’s signature hushed, resonant vocals with a rapid pulse and rich instrumentation, her inspirations now stretching from Krautrock pioneers Can to Broadcast, Arthur Russell to Fiona Apple.
Built on her trademark minimalist acoustic folk foundations, Billie’s third album is a more mature work, fostered around a strong backbone of bass and rhythm. Shedding the timidity of past recordings in favour of a more urgent sound, the songs mark a period of independence for Marten as she learned to nurture herself and break free from toxic relationships.
Returning to nature has played a significant role. “I wasn’t really treating myself very well, it was a bit of a disruptive time. All these songs are about getting myself out of that hole; they’re quite strong affirmations.
“The name Flora Fauna is like a green bath for my eyes. If the album were a painting, it would look like flora and fauna: it encompasses every organism, every corner of Earth, and a feeling of total abundance.”
The track listing will be: Garden Of Eden; Creature Of Mine; Human Replacement; Liquid Love; Heaven; Ruin; Pigeon; Kill The Clown; Walnut and Aquarium.
