Billie Marten with Olivia Kaplan

Billie — born Isabella Sophie Tweddle — got her early start in music thanks to parents who surrounded her with the music of Nick Drake, John Martyn, Joni Mitchell, Joan Armatrading, Kate Bush, Loudon Wainwright III and northern folk artist Chris Wood (who once told a nine-year-old Billie to “go for it!”). The family lived in the cathedral city Ripon, North Yorkshire, where Billie grew up in and around the Dales. “I feel a lot of emotion [in nature],” she says. “Like this extreme form of empathy. I find it a very comforting blanket. It cradles you, it’s always there. It’s not going away.” 

Billie was then signed to Chess Club Records, an imprint of Sony, “the day before my Maths GCSE”. I was revising and then signing in this big glass boardroom.” Not long afterwards, she was nominated for the BBC Sound of 2016, making fans out of Radio 1 tastemakers like Annie Mac and Huw Stephens. Her critically acclaimed debut album, Writing of Blues and Yellows, was a diarist, open-hearted collection of quietly beautiful songs released in 2016, when she was still just 17. The following year, she moved to London, where she worked on her 2019 follow-up, Feeding Seahorses ByHand, which The Line of Best Fit declared a “gentle and reserved masterpiece”.

Towards the end of 2019, Billie underwent a total overhaul, leaving Sony and choosing a new management team. She signed to Fiction records, a division of Universal, in lockdown via zoom. She then went back into the studio and reunited with producer Rich Cooper – whom she worked with on Blues and Yellows – Billie felt empowered to experiment andrediscover herself. “I picked up the bass instead of the guitar – which made all my rhythms different, because I can’t play bass,” she laughs. “That made everything a lot punchier and more direct.” With Rich adding drums to the songs as they were being written, the sound they developed together was one with a rapid pulse and rich instrumentation. The list of inspirations Billie brought to the studio roamed from krautrockers Can – “their rhythms are just bizarre, and don’t make any sense” – to Broadcast, Arthur Russell, and Fiona Apple. “It was such freedom to play, and just be, and explore different corners of me that I hadn’t before.”

Since then, she has toured frequently throughout the UK and US, returning home to record her fourth record, soon to be released in early 2023. Her writing themes explore social commentary, the struggle with modernity vs tradition, nature, mental health, relationships, and a general voyeurism on the world as she sees it.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Olivia Kaplan came to music through the American folk and jazz standards swimming throughout her childhood. At 13 she started writing songs on her dad’s Guild acoustic and has dedicated herself to the craft with ever growing acuity since. After pursuing a formal vocal and music education in high school and college, she left a conservatory level jazz program at McGill University in Montreal and made her way back home to record her own songs, while getting her degree in ethnomusicology at UCLA.

Olivia has self-released two EPs, Goddamn, I Miss You (2014) and At the Seams (2018), and singles “Comfort Food” (2019), and “What You Want” (2020). 2021 finds her embarking on a new chapter with single “Wrong”, a warm and bouncing groove dedicated to everyone trying their best to find balance in devastation and absurdity. The track features Buck Meek (Big Thief) on guitar.

Olivia Kaplan’s debut full-length album, Tonight Turns To Nothing, coming soon, introduces this dazzling songwriter to a musical landscape primed for her ease and duality. In 11 songs, she reflects on the pitfalls of modern intimacy and her own personal defeats with a measured self-awareness, melancholy and wit. The songs were written and recorded during the off hours of her side-hustle as a waitress in Los Angeles and made in the garage studio of the album’s producer and her band-mate, Adam Gunther. While the unmistakable anchor of Kaplan’s music is her rich, smoky voice and cathartic storytelling, her songs are elevated by inspired production choices, delicate arrangements, and the musicianship of the people in the room: including drummer Jorge Balbi (Sharon Van Etten), Alex Fischel (Spoon), and Buck Meek (Big Thief). The album was mixed by Joseph Lorge (Perfume Genius, Phoebe Bridgers).