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Babe Martin is the musical project of Zoë Larsen Cumming (she/her), a musician and songwriter based in Tāmaki Makaurau.

With a voice like velvet, and an acerbic deftness to her lyrics, Babe Martin is a performer on the rise. Her debut release, The Versoix EP in 2023, revealed a triptych of confident and arresting songs, and announced Larsen Cumming as a songwriter to watch. Since Versoix, Larsen Cumming has spent time crafting new music while performing in the bands of peers including Jazmine Mary, HINA and Isla Noon. The result of this period is the forthcoming EP Not a Bee, but a Wasp; where warm washes of violin, seascapes of piano and Larsen Cumming’s singular voice combine to create a sonic world beamed in from another time and place.

Today, Babe Martin releases Summer Fruit, the third single from Not a Bee, but a Wasp (out November 14, 2025), opens pre-orders for limited edition Eleventeen Ceramics merch, and announces a release show at Auckland Unitarian Church on November 20 with support from Schofield Strangelove (tickets are available now from Undertheradar.co.nz)

Anchored by a haunting viola line ‘Summer Fruit’ captures the calm after turbulence and the quiet question of what comes next. Written during a warm New Zealand summer ‘Summer Fruit’ uses metaphor to examine aging, change and community.

“Summer Fruit is a reference to an analogy someone told me when I needed to hear it most,” notes Larsen Cumming. “They described how your relationships and community are like an apple tree. You put in the time and care and water it, prune it, tend to it, but sometimes you’re allowed to just lean up against it, sit in its shade, and eat the fruit. Basically – that it’s okay to be vulnerable and allow yourself to be looked after by the relationships that you’ve cultivated when you need to.”

“My friends are reflections, my friends are mirror masks, sunlight on water, moonlight on firestone, my apple tree,” sings Larsen Cumming. “As much as Summer Fruit is an ode to friendship, it is very much an inward facing conversation with myself about how my life has changed, very much for the better, but irrevocably. I was seeing the best of myself reflected in my friends, and the best of them reflected in me.”

“Summer Fruit is deeply personal, so that’s exciting to share. The feeling that the song evokes is exactly how I feel now. Calm and questioning. I’m very excited for people to hear this one. If Sundog was the calm before the storm, Summer Fruit is the calm afterwards. It was the last song I wrote for the EP, and feels absolutely like a conclusion. It’s a snapshot of a new beginning, and feeling very much at peace, but very much changed.”

For ‘Summer Fruit’ Babe Martin was accompanied by Harry Thompson-Cook on guitar, Amy Borovich (HINA) on violin and viola along with Fen Ikner (LIPS) on drums and Maude Minnie Morris on bass. The track was mixed by Navakatoa Tekela-Pule (LEAO, Erny Belle, Noa Records) who shares co-production credits along with Morris and Larsen Cumming. ‘Summer Fruit’ was mastered by Sunreturn label mate Amelia Berry (Amamelia, Van Staden & Böhm).

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Photo Credit: Rachel Ashby