Billie Marten has shared ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’, a brand new track taken from her upcoming fourth record Drop Cherries – out 7th April via Fiction Records.
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 2021 album Flora Fauna, Feeding Seahorses by Hand (2019) and Writing of Blues and Yellows (2016).
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.”
Marten has also announced a run of record store shows – dates below, followed by upcoming stage shows…
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
