Helena Deland remembered our conversation three years ago at the launch of Someone New, an album on which she sought to define herself other than through the eyes of men, and precisely those who had made her doubt herself. With the release of his second title Goodnight Summerland, today she sings about a completely different love, that of her mother who died two years ago: “With such a subject,” says the singer-songwriter, “I feel that this time I have made an album that can do good to people. I feel like my songs create a space to say something useful. »
“It’s easier to talk about romantic relationships in song,” says Helena who, two days earlier, presented her new album in front of fans for the first time, on the roof of the Rialto theater, at the invitation of POP Montréal . At the end of a radiant September afternoon, accompanied by a guitarist and a keyboardist and backing vocalist, Helena Deland sang about life after mourning in front of an audience hanging on her lips.
The “ideal” context, she says, to break down the new material: “All these places that I evoke in my songs were visible from the roof of the Rialto”, like Mount Royal mentioned in The Animals : “ We went up the mountain / Last Friday night / All of the animals / Were out in plain sight “. At the turn of a following verse, we deduce that she is addressing her mother when she sings “ I’m not proud I was asking you / “Do you dim yourself down? / Do you say terrible things about me / When I’m not around?” “. And she replied: ““Can’t you see? / There ain’t anything threatening you here / Least of all me” »
The next one, Who I Sound Likeis one of the most poignant on this album which will grab your guts from the first suspended piano notes of the instrumental Moon Pith in opening. Who I Sound Like is a ballad on which Helena simply accompanies herself with an acoustic guitar and delicate backing vocals.
In his text, the sum of feelings is counted, “the denial, the confusion, accumulated during the first months following his death. My therapist suggested that I write a letter to my mother because our relationship was not necessarily simple… A lot of things were left unsaid between us. This letter tormented me: I didn’t want to do the exercise, I didn’t feel capable of it. Because what I would have wanted was a dialogue with her, whereas here, it was going more in one direction. » The letter became a song “and it did me good. The important thing is not to say something, but simply to talk about grief.”
This bond that unites us
Two other songs tackle head-on the experience lived by the musician, her father and her brother (who attended the concert on the roof of the Rialto). The superb Saying Something, a precious and classic folk song — there are flashes of Simon & Garfunkel in the tone of the guitars — “speaks about our cultural hesitation, our unease, around the subjects of mourning and death, and the need to have empathy. This text is me who doesn’t know what to say to my mother when we say goodbye, and she who doesn’t really know what to say to me, too. This moment where we encounter mystery. This song expresses the certainty that I have today: what is beautiful in life is the fact of saying something, of being as frank as possible. I don’t know how to explain it… This bond that unites us is the most important thing we accomplish. »
Lighter, with the sound of a wave lapping a beach in the background and piano notes sprinkled on the guitar, the song Swimmer “talks about the regrets we can have after bereavement. It’s about what changes forever in our relationship with a person when we can no longer share anything with them.
Strangely, there is as much light in these songs as there was on the roof of the Rialto three weeks ago. “Yes, I really hope so,” admits Helena. Paradoxically, this album is brighter than my first album. I have several things to say about this, but I believe the light comes from the fact that I feel more solid today. Less alone too — and more precisely in this adventure of having a career in music. Having made a first album helps us to better understand what we want in life, to have a more precise idea of the breath to give to a project – here more acoustic and classical.
“It was my goal to align the album in a more acoustic direction, to approach more timeless musical references,” explains Helena Deland, who entrusted the production of the album to the singer-songwriter New Yorker Sam Evian, collaborator of Cass McCombs, Okkervil River and Big Thief. “I wanted this acoustic sound because of the message: I want the text to be listened to, and so I didn’t feel the need to build a whole soundscape around the songs. The songs are rich, even if they are simply acoustic. »
We will even recognize in the simplicity of the orchestrations and the poignant frankness of Helena’s vocal interpretations a spiritual dimension to Goodnight Summerland. “Immediately after my mother died, I felt that I was going through an experience that many people also go through, but perhaps less so people my age and my brother’s age. Older women came to tell me that they still spoke to their deceased mother and that has a bit of spirituality to it. It’s being able to feel at peace, despite the lack of answers to the questions we still ask ourselves. »
“It’s strange, all the same, to talk about my mother like that, publicly,” Helena Deland realizes now. It seems like I found a sort of very didactic way of talking about it so that I could approach the subject in an interview for the release of the album,” one more step in his grieving process. “Finishing the recording was difficult; I had put all my energy into that, into my mourning project. Completing it felt like going through a crucial milestone, and then I started feeling different things. I have the impression that releasing this album means completing the work – the musical work, not the work of mourning. Now we’ll have to go and sing these songs on stage. »