Skullcrusher: “I like to think childhood has a darker edge” | Interview

“Places/Plans” was the first song she recorded, initially for fun, with her musician/producer friend Noah Wineman (aka Runnner). It was also the first song she released in early 2020 after signing to Secretly Canadian based solely on her demos. Shortly after, she played her first show to friends and family, as well as an unexpected audience of early Skullcrusher converts.

“I didn’t expect the media attention I got at the time to be on that show,” she says, speaking from a room in her mother’s house. Her cat, Finn, meows loudly and walks on her keyboard, blocking the view over Zoom. “It was very fascinating and fun. I was definitely nervous! In my head, I always imagined that things would be much more modest.’

Now, after two well-received EPs – 2020’s self-titled and last year’s Storm in summer – Ballentine is preparing to release his debut full-length album, Calm the room. A big part of the album, as the cover art suggests, is the idea of ​​revisiting your past, as if your childhood memories can be seen through the windows of a dollhouse. In the album’s 14 songs, Ballentine expresses his inner world through this web and mysterious construction.

“There is a tendency to create a simplification of childhood, especially in the media,” she says. “I like to think of it as having a darker edge, of getting to the root of my anxieties. Children have a conscious maturity similar to that which exists in the minds of adults, but without the awareness of the significance that certain events may have in later life.