SKULLCRUSHER – Quiet The Room [LP]

Description

Helen Ballentines spellbinding first full-length album Quiet the Roomis the sound of a window opening, a barrier dissolving. Across thesefourteen tracks, the outside world seeps in and the inside world crawlsout. The result is a stunning and quietly moving work that reflects thejourneys we take through the physical and spiritual realms of ourselves inorder to show up for the world.

While writing the album in the summer of 2021, Ballentine drewinspiration from her childhood home in Mount Vernon, NY. What she setout to capture on Quiet the Room was not the innocence of childhood,as it is so often portrayed, but the intense complexity of it. Past andpresent merge Escher-like in this dreamlike space laced with elementsof fantasy, magic, and mystery. Musically, this translates into a sound thatfeels somehow weighty and ephemeral all at once, like a time lapse ofcopper corroding.

To capture the effortless blend of electronic, ambient, folk, and rock,Ballentine and her collaborator Noah Weinman brought in producerAndrew Sarlo to record at Chicken Shack studio in Upstate New York,close to where Ballentine grew up. We wanted every song to have thatlittle twinkle, but also a sense of crumbling, she says. These songs thrumwith moments of anxiety that boil over into moments of peace, as on leadsingle Whatever Fits Together, which chugs to a ragged start beforethe gears catch and ease. On Its Like a Secret, Ballentine struggles toconnect and let people in, recognizing that no one can ever fully knowour inner worlds and that to understand each other is to cross a barrierand leave a part of ourselves behind. And yet, on closing track You aremy House, she finds a way to reach out. You are the walls and floors ofmy room, she sings in perfect, hopeful harmony.

Tracklist:

1. They Quiet the Room
2. Building a Swing
3. Whatever Fits Together
4. Whistle of the Dead
5. Lullaby in February
6. Pass Through Me
7. Could It Be the Way I Look at Everything?
8. Outside, Playing
9. It’s Like a Secret
10. Sticker
11. Window Somewhere
12. (Secret Instrumental)
13. Quiet the Room
14. You Are My House

UPC: 656605041018
Label: Secretly Canadian
Release Date: 10.14.22
Format: Vinyl