Skullcrusher is not, as you might expect, some black metal band from Scandinavia, but instead LA-based songwriter Helen Ballentine.
She will release her debut four track EP via Secretly Canadian on the 26th June and the stunning “Places/Plans” is the lead from it, a sparse and gorgeously intimate song that is all the more powerful and compelling for its minimalist arrangement. In the case of Places / Plans the debut single by Skullcrusher, all of these elements are brought together. The video is carefully set up and washed with a haunting home-filmed haziness the re-watching of old family footage, with the lyrics incorporated book-style, and the song itself is compiled of a pretty loneliness.
The song and music video work side by side. It’s just one camera shot of a back garden, the house being white and grand and likely host to supernatural goings on. Skullcrusher sits on a blanket in the middle of the beaten lawn, having a picnic with herself like a child having an imaginary tea party with their toys. Another Skullcrusher sits swinging moodily on a swing, and a third stands on the steps by the backdoor sawing a piece of wood. They are clones, fragments of herself, lost in solitary thought. All while this is taking place, the lyrics appear at the bottom of the recording in gothic font- journal style questions such as ‘Does it matter if I’m a really good friend? And ‘Can I make it up there as I am?.
Skullcrusher is the musical project of LA based songwriter Helen Ballentine “Places/Plans” by Skullcrusher, from her forthcoming self-titled EP out June 26th on Secretly Canadian.
The Fat Angel Sings 