Dartmoor birdsong and coastal field recordings beguile in new EP Billie Maree

Totnes musician Billie Maree took a hydrophone into Devon’s rivers, ran along the coastline recording the sea and spent days on Dartmoor capturing birdsong – and turned the result into a four-track EP about our fractured relationship with the natural world.

The Listening Body

The Listening Body, released 24 April, is the work of Billie: singer, producer and – on this record – field recordist. Using a hydrophone microphone placed directly in rivers and streams, Billie captured water droplets and underwater movement before transforming those recordings into percussive textures using echo, EQ and reverb.

The result harmonises beautifully with Billie’s folk-inflected songcraft and atmospheric electronics in a sound that’s been compared to London Grammar and Aurora.

Meaning during times of crisis

“Writing music is a way of finding meaning during times of crisis,” Billie tells ArtsCulture. “If people remembered our connection to nature more, the world would look very different.”

One track, A Lullaby, was born from a day Billie spent running along the South Devon coast, recording the sea. “I felt like a child, finding the sweetness in those sounds,” Billie says. “That whole song was written in that sense of child-like wonder – a place I long to go back to in myself.”

Tune into nature

Another track, Dreaming River, which was shortlisted for the Tune Into Nature Music Prize and played on BBC Radio 3, carries the project’s sharpest message. Its central lyric – “We cannot drink from our rivers” – was written in direct response to the declining state of the UK’s waterways, a crisis Maree felt couldn’t go unnamed.

“I spent lots of time on Dartmoor recording rivers, birds and the wind in the trees,” Billie says. “The idea was to listen to the natural world – to treat nature as my collaborator.”

Nature as a creative collaborator

The EP is released with Sounds Right, an initiative that recognises nature as a creative collaborator and channels proceeds directly to frontline conservation organisations worldwide and EarthPercent, the climate charity co-founded by Brian Eno – full list at earthpercent.org/whatwefund.

Two singles precede the full release. The Spine – a folk-rooted track threaded with Dartmoor birdsong – is out now. Domnu, an electronic piece written on a rainy night in North Devon exploring how the human body, like the natural world, keeps score.

Maree performs music from The Listening Body live this spring, including a hometown show at The Barrel House in Totnes on April 17.

The Listening Body is released April 24.

top image: courtesy of Tessa Bricknell