Singer songwriter Helen Ballentine (aka Skullcrusher) has released a new track and video for ‘It’s Like a Secret.’ This is the third single off her upcoming debut album Quiet the Room, out October 14 via Secretly Canadian. The track fits perfectly in the ethereal world Helen has created on the previous two singles with her angelic vocals exploring the bonds of a relationship backed by soft guitar, piano and violin. The accompanying video, animated by Melanie Kleid, is filled with stop motion illustrations in warm earth tones.
Of the track, Helen says, “Writing this song was when I first felt connected to the album as a whole and really felt it taking shape. I had been trying to put into words a very familiar sensation that seemed completely intangible and inexpressible. It’s sort of a burrowing into myself, which I associate most with being very immersed in a creative project and simultaneously quite disconnected from other people. I think this feeling manifests in many different ways: as a shield or form of protection, a home, a place to hide and feel safe, an outlet for my creativity… but also a very confining and lonely space that further separates me from those around me. The song ended up being about this feeling and more specifically about the process and limitations of trying to communicate it. It feels very special to be able to convey these thoughts in some way.”
The framework for Quiet the Room was laid two years ago, when Ballentine wrote and recorded a song of the same name. Unlike most other Skullcrusher songs, it was written on piano, her childhood instrument. While writing the rest of the album in the summer of 2021, visions of Ballentine’s youth flocked like bats from the attic as she wandered her Los Angeles apartment in the sticky, sweltering heat. The image of a house emerged as she merged the interior world of her songs with the exterior rooms that contained her. She was thinking of her childhood in Mount Vernon, NY, which she calls the biggest inspiration for the record.
“It’s like layers of tracing paper, like someone is trying to make a drawing and you’re seeing the entire process,” Ballentine says of the album’s construction. Looking back through home videos, she became struck by seemingly benign shots captured through the window—her at the piano or walking in the yard. There was a weight that extended beyond the edges of the frame, a darkness hovering just out of view: her parents were fighting, on the road to divorce. The house was failing to contain them all. What she set out to capture on Quiet the Room was not the innocence of childhood, as it is so often portrayed, but the intense complexity of it. The result is a stunning and quietly moving work that reflects the journeys we take through the physical and spiritual realms of ourselves in order to show up for the world.
Tracklist in Full:
- They Quiet the Room
- Building a Swing
- Whatever Fits Together
- Whistle of the Dead
- Lullaby in February
- Pass Through Me
- Could it be the way I look at everything?
- Outside, playing
- It’s Like a Secret
- Sticker
- Window Somewhere
- (secret instrumental)
- Quiet the Room
- You are my House
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