Someone New something to rave about
Helena Deland getting accolades for latest album that can be both soothing and unsettling
Vancouver-born, Montreal-based singer/songwriter Helena Deland is a busy artist.
The Quebec City-raised musician dropped her debut EP Drawing Room in 2016 on the indie label Chivi Chivi. Supported by touring and the well-received video for Baby, that release gave her a jumping off point for more ambitious records. From the Series of Songs Altogether Unaccompanied Volumes I, II, III and IV arrived in 2018 and saw her inking a deal with Luminelle Recordings for U.S. and global distribution.
The label is home to a number of atmospheric synth-folk acts who could best be described as following the quiet-quieter-quiet approach to songwriting.
Collaborating with Gab Wax, whose bio includes the War on Drugs and Soccer Mommy, the two came up with 13 tracks that are grabbing glowing reviews from taste-making music sites such as Consequence of Sound and Sterogum, as well as industry standard types such as Billboard and Paste.
Here are five things to know about Someone New.
1 SOMEONE NEW
The title track opens the set and establishes the vibe of the entire recording. With a voice that balances between Canadiana folkiness and college pop, the tune is a slow-burner. It begins on a quavering a cappella verse with a single note droning in the background and reverb as she sings “I am stuck/I am stuck as a refrain.” Key an easygoing guitar and a shuffling snare buried in the background and the songs starts to percolate. But it's only a tease, as the first three minutes are devoted to getting there with only a minute left to get everyone's toe-tapping before the track vanishes away. Very effective.
2
DOG
An album highlight, this atmospheric ode to an interpersonal relationship that may not be the healthiest — “I hate to be your dog/But I have everything to gain/From your hand on my/Like I'm about to be trained” — really gets under your skin with repeated listenings. Drenched in feedback and muddy drums, it's probably not going to be on any wedding party playlists. Its sense of personal sacrifice is unsettling.
3
COMFORT, EDGE
“Give me comfort/Give me edge/Make it easy/Make me beg.” Another obsessive plea for someone to never cease surprising the narrator, couched in stripped-down guitar rock that seems to pingpong around your head. Deland's style of moving from nearly no accompaniment, or at least minimal backing, to choruses of distant whispers, raw percussion and razorsharp guitar really works.
4
SMOKING AT THE GAS STATION
Not only does this song have a great title, but it also might be one of the most straight-ahead songs on the album. Sure, the dominant empty space setting for all the songs is here. But her vocal is quite upfront in the mix and far more melodic and less sung-spoken. At one time, this would have been considered psychedelic.
5
FILL THE ROOMS
Breathy and barely holding together, the album closer is a lullabye of simple, plucked guitar and layered fragile vocals that is, at times, soothing and also unsettling. In other words, you might sleep like a baby or you might be too afraid of what's under the bed to stand a chance of drifting off. A few seconds blank pause in the tune before the final verse does nothing to assuage that unease. The drone to end the record is a twin to the one that opens it.
ALSO OUT THIS WEEK
BAHAMAS
SAD HUNK | OPAQUE PURPLE
If Jack Johnson had any edge and could shred on guitar, there is a very good chance his music would sound like what Bahamas' Afie Jurvanen is laying down on his latest. His professorial funk on songs such as Trick to Happy and Fair Share or the bluesy delivery on Can't Complain are so easygoing and slick, it's like an old familiar friend is jamming in the house. The production is perfect too, making the whole record the sonic equivalent of your favourite meal served up with no rush.
JENNIFER CASTLE MONARCH SEASON | PARADISE OF BACHELORS
Inspired by the NASA experiments on board the International Space Station involving Monarch butterflies and their instinctive draw to the light of the moon, the Ontario singer/songwriter holed up in a cabin on Lake Erie and produced nine delicate, deliberately shaky songs. If her acclaimed previous release Angels of Death was a somewhat muscular folk-inspired recording, this new one is all about meditative poetry delivered on gossamer wings of tender guitar, often jarring harmonica and ambient environmental interludes of chirping crickets and the like. Everything is so delicate, so exposed, that you think a song such as Justice will just shatter. This will be a very popular winter season fireside listen.
ROBERT WYATT
HIS GREATEST MISSES | DOMINO
If ever there was an artist deserving of a wider audience, Robert Wyatt is one. Since leaving the prog-rock weirdness of such seminal bands as Soft Machine and Matching Mole to embark on a solo career, Wyatt has pursued his own path for almost 50 years. From the jazzy Sea Song to eclectic covers of everything from Neil Diamond's I'm A Believer to Chilean nuevo canto legend Violeta Parra's Arauco, no track on this compilation mirrors the next save for Wyatt's tattered falsetto. Naturally, his “hit” version of Elvis Costello and Clive Langer's Shipbuilding is included.