Billie Marten: Releasing fifth album Dog Eared on July 18
RIPON folk singer-songwriter Billie Marten will showcase her fifth album in her support slot at Elbow’s sold-out Live At York Museum Gardens concert tomorrow evening.
Released on Fiction Records on July 18, Dog Eared has been trailed by five singles, Swing, Crown, Feeling, Leap Year and now Clover, a song built out of contradictions and oxymorons.
“Clover is a song about feeling small but needing to appear big,” says Billie, 26, who now lives in London. “It’s a note on power and inequality. Most of this record talks about age and experience and relevance, something that’s clogged my mind since I began music.
“I carry a lot of premature worry with me, and that’s something that comes from starting an adult life as a teenager I suppose. I gained the human affliction of inventing things before they happen. I’m a multitude of anxieties.”
The cover artwork for Billie Marten’s new album, Dog Eared
Billie released her debut album, Writing Of Blues And Yellows, at the age of 17 in 2016, since followed Feeding Seahorses By Hand in 2019, Flora Fauna in 2021 and Drop Cherries in 2023.
She headed to New York last summer to record with producer Phil Weinrobe (Adrianne Lenker, Laura Veirs) at his Sugar Mountain studio, alongside an all-star cast of musicians.
Catalan singer-songwriter/guitarist Núria Graham, bassist Josh Crumbly, virtuosic guitarist Mike Haldeman, multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily, indie-rock musician Sam Evian, former Dirty Projectors vocalist/folk musician Maia Friedman, Brazilian percussionist Mauro Refosco, drummer/multi-instrumentalist Vishal Nayak, keys/synth player Michael Coleman and Vermont folk musician Sam Amidon all sprinkle their gold dust over Dog Eared.
Together they add up to a band with credits across records by Cassandra Jenkins, Kamasi Washington, Moses Sumney, Robert Glasper, Tune-Yards, Empress Of, Nick Hakim, David Byrne, Atoms For Peace, Feist, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and now Billie Marten.
Billie Marten’s Record Store Tour: Visiting Sheffield and Huddersfield
Since 2023’s Drop Cherries, Billie has spent her time largely on the road, honing her craft as a deeply instinctual artist and songwriter. Living and learning. Playing and writing. Collaborating with gifted strangers. Exploring questions of identity and self. All the while, sending demos and voice-notes across the Atlantic to Weinrobe and watching those embryonic songs come to life and flourish fully realised in the studio.
The resulting Dog Eared track listing comprises Feeling; Crown; Clover; No Sudden Changes; The Glass; Leap Year; Goodnight Noon; Planets; You And I Both and Swing.
Producer Weinrobe enthuses: “Dog Eared is a miracle. This record feels like what music is supposed to be: a creative dialogue between wide-open musicians, all pushing in the exact same direction. And that direction is clear – the controls are set for the heart of Billie’s incredible songs.
“Yes, the record was recorded live. Yes, Billie sang the lead vocals as it was going down. Yes, we were huddled up in a circle – no headphones, no walls, no playback, nothing separating each person from the next, and nothing separating the performers from their performances.
“I’ve discovered that I have a really particular long-term memory,” says Billie Marten
“But that’s not why this record is a monument. It’s a monument because Billie walked into the studio every morning and opened her mouth and sang these incredible melodies and gorgeous lyrics without any worries or fears or desires to control the art. She was the art. And everyone surrounded her, and lifted her up, and in turn she lifted the music to heights that we are all lucky to get to listen to, on repeat, forever.”
Billie highlights the opening track, Feeling. “I’ve discovered that I have a really particular long-term memory: I have specific sensory recollections from when I was two onwards, that I can recall easily now,” she says.
“One of these is marking out roads in my grandmother’s patterned carpet, for my Dad’s old 1950/60s’ toy cars to drive on. I used to trace patterns in everything: fabric seats at the dentist, carpets, wallpaper and walls, raindrops on car windows. Everything had a pattern to be noticed.”
Billie Marten’s Dog Eared Tour 2025 itinerary
Billie adds: “Another strong memory is the feeling of big, warm hands when you’re a child and how comforting and safe that feels. The notion of age being so far away from you, but you know it’s a future inevitability, and that you’re on your way there. The inarticulateness of that ‘feeling’ you can’t describe yet, but you’re aware of a push in the world that you don’t yet understand.”
“Feeling is really set alight by Núria Graham’s guitar part, the one you hear from the outset. It sparks the album info life and really sets a benchmark in terms of rhythm. This is an album of rhythmic focus.”
Billie will be supporting Elbow tomorrow fresh from performing on the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury last Friday. She will play Yorkshire acoustic sets at Beartree, Sheffield (afternoon show), and Vinyl Tap, Huddersfield (evening show), on her solo Record Store Tour itinerary, followed by Leeds Irish Centre on November 14 on her eight-date Dog Eared headline tour, when Le Ren supports. Tickets are on sale at billiemarten.com.
Futuresound Group presents Elbow, Eliza Carthy & The Restitution and Billie Marten at Live At York Museum Gardens, York, tomorrow. Gates open at 5pm. SOLD OUT.
