Photo Credit : Lawrence Fafard // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, the acclaimed Montreal-based songwriter and musician Helena Deland releases her second album, Goodnight Summerland, on Montreal independent Chivi Chivi. A beautiful, tender collection of folk songs meditating on the joys of life, the questions we face as we grow older, the agonies and ecstasies of love and the abject sorrow of loss and grief.
To further celebrate the release of Goodnight Summerland, Helena Deland has released a stunning video for new single “The Animals” directed by Romain F. Dubois. In keeping with this soaring, torch song's callout to an estranged lover, the atmospheric, nocturnal video depicts water droplets traveling through unsettled, burnished landscapes and moody, inky black skies.
“The Animals” follows on from previous single “Strawberry Moon” a folk lullaby full of wistful piano melodies, textured guitar and Helena's exquisite, crystalline vocals. The moonlit solo performance video by David Connor is intimate and entirely moving.
It's been quite a journey for Helena Deland's second release, with the rumble of press praise growing ever louder as we approached today's release day. Stereogum named Goodnight Summerland their Album of the Week.
Goodnight Summerland also features the previous elegiac singles Deland released throughout 2023 and beyond. This August brought the lush, harmony-laden “Bright Green Vibrant Gray,” accompanied by a charming video directed by Xavier Beldor depicting Deland going on a painting expedition through the deep snow in Charlevoix, Quebec. The melancholy wonder of 2022’s “Swimmer” was praised by The New York Times, The FADER and PASTE and the breezy, uplifting “Spring Bug” made it onto Pitchfork’s SELECTS staff picks playlist.
Helena Deland is interested in how songs can hold what eludes everyday language. Her music draws on reading and walking around. Goodnight Summerland was recorded with Sam Evian at Flying Cloud Recordings in the Catskill mountains. It was engineered by Sam, co-produced by Helena and Sam, and mastered by Heba Kadry (Bjork, Beach House, Slowdive). Deland's new songs have simpler musical arrangements than 2020's debut Someone New, focusing on the sheer joy and transformative power of a good song.
ABOUT HELENA DELAND:
Helena's beloved debut album, Someone New, was released in 2020 on Luminelle Recordings, garnering press acclaim from Brooklyn Vegan, THE FADER, NPR, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paste, Pitchfork, and Stereogum among many others. It was followed by the release of Hildegard, a collaborative album with fellow Montreal musician Ouri on section1. 2023 has also seen Helena collaborate with claire rousay, on the “Deceiver” single, released in May as part of Mexican Summer’s Looking Glass series, and on July’s “Sigh In My Ear” as part of Saddle Creek’s Document series.
In November 2023 Helena will embark on her First Headline Tour of North America, followed by her first headline dates overseas in February 2024. She has extensively toured North America and Europe opening for the likes of Weyes Blood, Andy Shauf, The Weather Station, Connan Mockasin, Soccer Mommy, and Iggy Pop.
HELENA DELAND - HEADLINE TOUR DATES:
TICKETS @ WWW.HELENADELAND.COM
11/02/2023 - Vancouver - Fox Cabaret
11/03/2023 - Seattle - Madame Lou’s
11/04/2023 - Portland - Mississippi Studios
11/06/2023 - San Francisco - Cafe du Nord
11/07/2023 - Los Angeles - Lodge Room
11/08/2023 - San Diego - Casbah
11/09/2023 - Phoenix - Valley Bar
11/11/2023 - Denver - Lost Lake
11/13/2023 - Minneapolis - 7th st
11/14/2023 - Chicago - Lincoln Hall
11/15/2023 - Detroit - El club
11/16/2023 - Toronto - Horseshoe
11/18/2023 - Brooklyn - Music Hall of Williamsburg
11/19/2023 - DC - Songbyrd
11/24/2023 - Montréal - La Tulipe
11/25/2023 - Québec - Le Pantoum
02/13/2024 - Baden - One Of A Million Festival
02/14/2024 - Munich - Milla
02/15/2024 - Berlin - Privatclub
02/16/2024 - Amsterdam - Paradiso Upstairs
02/17/2024 - Paris - Pop Up Du Label
02/19/2024 - Brussels - Botanique
02/21/2024 - London - The Lexington
MORE PRAISE FOR HELENA DELAND
"Personal loss and worries about global warming merge in ‘Swimmer.’ Helena Deland sings in a hushed, humble voice over acoustic guitar picking and rumbling noise undercurrents. She’s singing to someone who won’t be around long, who flinches at a cold ocean swim but who also realizes that ‘The warmer waters get, the more the oceans expand.’ The song contrasts brief human lifetimes to the inexorable forces of nature; the noise is the eternal sound of crashing waves." - The New York Times (The Playlist)
“An introspective jewel of a song, "Bright Green Vibrant Gray" weaves together our relationships to each other and nature, making the losses a little softer and the world a bit brighter.”
CBC Music
“‘Spring Bug’ is a lush landscape of oil-painted acoustic pondering, traipsing lightly through meaningful lyrics. Deland opens the track with cyclical acoustic guitar fingerpicking, warm in tone and pensive in sound. The easy current of the guitar almost gives off the feeling of meditation, coursing through dissonant progressions. A quirky acoustic bass line joins in the second verse, nodding to the eccentric twinge in Deland’s sound.” - Ones To Watch
“‘Swimmer’ is dedicated to the memory of Deland’s mother, who passed away last year. Its instrumentation is as spare as its emotions are abundant: Deland’s porcelain vocals rest on a bed of fingerpicked acoustic guitar and atmospheric synth accents, foregrounding lyrics (inspired by poet Mary Oliver’s “Clamming”) that are both heartbreaking and beautiful.” - Paste
“‘Bright Green Vibrant Gray,’ the new single off of her upcoming second record, Goodnight Summerland, has a different texture. Where the songs on Someone New shared a phenotype with the velvety, sensual trip hop of Portishead, ‘Bright Green Vibrant Gray,’ is wispier, folkier. The song is concerned with new loves, the loss of a parent, thinking of human existence as something geological… The instrumentation mirrors this lyrical pastoralism: the way the drums turn it all into a sleepy sort of waltz, the way the guitars turn like the tides. It is an exquisite, small song. Something to rub your eyes to as you greet the day, remembering how the world is very big and old.” - Pitchfork
“Helena Deland is back with {“Spring Bug”} a radiant, swaying springtime anthem, buzzing with the hope, uncertainty, and possibility of renewal.” - Gorilla Vs. Bear
“’Swimmer’ strips things back into a ghostly folk song where Deland's voice perches itself above doleful acoustic guitar lines.” - The FADER
“{“Spring Bug” is} introspective, moving…Against warm chords, her voice is like a breeze on a spring day.”- Uproxx
