From the hallucinatory glow of Los Angeles to the stark winters of upstate New York, Skullcrusher’s Helen Ballentine finds clarity in isolation and imperfection.

Even as an American, the vastness of this country is hard to fully grasp. While its two coasts may have some shared political preferences, there’s as many miles between the two states spiritually as there are physically. For Skullcrusher, the difference in living on one coast versus another is best measured in how people express their isolation.

“Darkness still exists in LA, but the way it manifests is less physical,” she relays to me in a Ridgewood coffee shop, with business in full-swing for the remote workers around us. “I felt physically better [there], but there’s a hallucinatory feeling to life.”

Helen Ballantine, the woman behind the moniker, suits the cold weather and physical darkness that weaves into everyday life here, whether it be the parade of honking cars in the city, or the hushed dread of upstate’s frigid winter gloaming. While it took some adjustment, she’s learned to weather them once again, after returning to life here for the first time since adolescence. After the dissolution of a long romantic relationship, she lived with her mother for a year in Hudson, NY, before living on her own in the greater Hudson Valley. Utilizing her new backdrop, she gradually built what would become her second album.

“Darkness still exists in LA, but the way it manifests is less physical.”

And Your Song Is Like A Circle is not only her strongest work to date, but represents a fully-formed version of her image and mystique. The expansion into more intricate soundscapes brilliantly captures ephemeral hauntings born of the region’s long winters. And while many of the feelings that inform her work are the same as they’ve been previously, having a landscape that matches her own fluctuations in energy has been a source of comfort. That parade of cars requires less motivation to honk, and it’s difficult to walk down a street absent the huffs and groans from tired masses, but there is a respectable honesty to all of it that brings relief.

That same character of urban frankness, but importantly also its genuineness, sits within Ballantine also. We connect over a deep love of animals, as she discusses the impact of her cat Finn (an adorable ginger tabby) with me, considering how talking about a pet you love with a stranger requires an unexpected amount of trepidation. That bond can be equivalent to one she has with the closest of companions , yet it’s rarely discussed with the same level of respect.

He’s been a valued presence as she grapples with the insecurity that is inevitable to her after releasing a project. While the process builds for her a stronger sense of self when it’s all said and done, it’s admittedly a bit weird having strangers perceive and comment upon this personal expression written and recorded in intimate bedrooms over the past two years.

In Hudson Valley bedrooms, she worked in fits and starts through a particularly difficult writing process that “felt like an exorcism.” However, the actual recording process with producer Isaac Eiger proved remarkably smooth and focused. All tracks were recorded in Eiger’s Bushwick bedroom, starting with ‘Changes’, a moment that set the tone for the ambiance the album would pursue. His skills, synthesizer prowess and easy company seemed to provide the ideal working environment for Helen, who describes the process as feeling “[unlike] making a record. You’re just playing together, developing a friendship and giving yourself social structure.”

Long influenced by Grouper, she has often incorporated synthesizers and electronics in her distinctive ambient realms, but their collaboration yielded the greatest sonic divergence of her material to date. Of particular influence was the song ‘Touch Absence’ by Lenarc Artifax, which captures a profound sense of particularly digital alienation that bleeds into the unsettled fabric of And Your Song Is Like A Circle.

She articulates that feeling as “following a path that was unravelling.” A difficult, and largely inevitable strain of discomfort that approaches alongside one’s 30s, which just happened to coincide with a complete change of environment. It’s been a moment of coming to terms with what she’s built to sustain her future, and what characters in the journey are now in the rearview, unlikely to return.

Ballantine’s family and new friends that built up this support system, both in the rural upstate and nearby metropolis, were essential in moving forward. After touring together, she’s developed a strong bond with the band Florist; members of a small, mighty scene of sensitive, soundscape-oriented songwriters in the city. The friendship brought not just musical influence, but a new partner, their guitarist Johnnie, who she’s been dating for the last two years.

While the life that brought forth her last album (2022’s Quiet the Room) is distant, she maintains that any sonic and lyrical evolution on And Your Song Is Like A Circle was mostly subconscious. For her, songwriting functions as a physical action that allows her to reflect without being critical to her own thoughts. While that is prone to change as the songs get fleshed out and recorded, her initial creation process thrives on spontaneity.

This musical process started as an escape from the intensely competitive environment of the prestigious secondary school she attended. Surrounded by peers driven by academia and sometimes sensitive to the criticism her writing would get in this environment, her music allowed her to express her identity without the fear of a letter grade laminated on her thoughts. Yet, as her music gathered attention and garnered reviews, she has found old appraisals of her work return: “The criticism I got is kind of the same as now - I can have trouble completing my thought.”

However, the idea of a thought as an abstract concept and what it means for one’s self or one’s idea to be complete or incomplete, became defining themes of the songs that make up And Your Song Is Like A Circle. Indeed, she shares that the album’s title connects to this idea of incompleteness and pure emotional expression, rotating as a circle, through a perpetual ebb and flow.

Whether or not her songs register as a complete thought to every listener, her fanbase has only continued to grow as she sets out on an extensive tour. She’ll be playing some impressive venues, including a headlining slot at the legendary Music Hall of Williamsburg. Yet, no matter the size of the place she’s playing, she feels comfortable as long as the crowd is listening with good intentions, which is rarely (if ever), in doubt amongst her supporters.

Having already achieved plenty at just 30 years old, she relays one final anecdote as we finish our coffee and end the discussion. Despite her having requested to change her birthplace on Wikipedia to Manhattan, she has been denied by the editors and questions what it’ll take to get it changed. Perhaps some day the vanguard of online knowledge will accept the edit, and with it make new fans aware that her new life in New York is a return, rather than a reset.