Skullcrusher turned to songwriting, and David Lynch, as a means of recovery

Helen Ballentine’s ginger tomcat, Finn, slinks into view and perches himself above her right shoulder. Ballentine, who records gauzy and richly tactile folk songs as Skullcrusher, refers to her beloved pet as her “best friend,” one of the few constants in her life over a tumultuous past few years. It included the end of a long-term relationship and her departure from Los Angeles, the city she had called home for nearly a decade.

“He’s orange and very much fits the “orange cat” stereotype—super affectionate, talkative, playful,” she says as Finn flits out of view of the laptop camera. “He feels like my son, honestly. I think a lot of people experience that kind of bond with animals, where you can’t communicate through language, but there’s a deep love in the way you look at each other.”

At one point the cat became seriously ill, further plunging Ballentine’s life into a sort of chaos. “I was there for him every day, and in return, he was there for me during some really difficult moments,” she recalls.

This challenging period is captured on And Your Song Is Like A Circle, a new Skullcrusher album due out on October 17 via her new label Dirty Hit (home to The 1975, Beabadoobee, among others). Her first release since 2022 debut Quiet The Room, the collection of songs attempt to pin down the ephemeral nature of life and how it can change in an instant. Ballentine’s skill as a songwriter is adding gravitas to the most conceptual of ideas or, as she does on the album’s meta first single “Exhale,” pull into focus the act of writing a song in the first place. “If this song is like breathing,” she whispers from a thicket of gently flickering synthesizers, “I feel it leave. I feel it in me.”

That early intimacy runs throughout And Your Song Is Like A Circle, an album Ballentine says gave her life structure when everything else was shifting beneath her feet. “Sometimes there is a reluctance to move forward, to change, to be seen, to try and articulate something,” she says. “Songwriting helps me accept that change. It teaches me to surrender a bit and then begin again.”

Read on to discover Ballentine’s experiences of change and the cult movie directors that helped her find her feet again.

Can you talk me through the most significant changes in your life while making And Your Song Is Like A Circle, and how they’re reflected in the music?

Skullcrusher: The last few years have been a pretty intense period of transition, almost like a shedding of a former life. I had been living in LA for nearly 10 years, and I was in a long-term relationship for about four of those years. All of that kind of fell apart. I went through a breakup, moved home to New York and, around the same time, my cat got very sick. I found myself pretty isolated in New York. It was a really intense time, trying to figure out what would keep me motivated and grounded. When I reflect on it, it feels very natural, like a necessary chaos that pushes you into a new phase of life. A kind of evolution.

You mentioned needing to find certain things to keep you going. What were they for you?

Definitely songwriting and music. Writing has always been this comforting outlet. Sometimes it feels like the only thing I can really do. You know how, during a panic attack, you ground yourself by tuning into your senses, feeling your feet on the ground, touching something tangible, noticing your breath? Music works like that for me. I also got really into movies and books. And, of course, my cat. He’s like my best friend.

What were some books and movies that particularly inspired or comforted you during this time?

Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki is my all-time favorite film. That cyclical structure, the way the film ends in a place that mirrors the beginning, but with the character changed, is something I was thinking about a lot while writing. That sense of something ending, something beginning.
I was also watching a lot of David Lynch, especially Inland Empire. I was living alone in Hudson for a while and I would wake up, make coffee, and watch Inland Empire with my cat. It was chaotic and dissociative, but somehow comforting. Lynch really captures the eeriness of LA in a way I connect with. I also watched a lot of Japanese horror; Cure and Pulse. Kiyoshi Kurosawa is amazing. His films explore themes like dissociation and identity, and the idea of emptiness as a vessel that can be filled with good or evil.

Is there a Skullcrusher Letterboxd account?

A lot of people have told me I should start one but no. I just have a long notes page on my phone with movie thoughts. I’ve been meaning to make one, maybe just to log my favorites. I wouldn’t necessarily want to write reviews or anything, just a record.

I was reading an older interview, around the time your first EP came out. You discussed writing about unpleasant experiences with “power, anger, and aggression” and how that contrasts with the softness of the music. Do you think you maintain that approach in your newer writing, or have things shifted on this album?

That contrast is still very present. I’m always interested in how something dark can live within something beautiful. I think the album continues to explore that: the tension between vulnerability and strength, gentleness and chaos. That duality just feels true to life.