Quiet The Room

Limited LP : Cloudy White Vinyl

Helen Ballentine’s spellbinding first full-length album Quiet the Room is the sound of a window opening, a barrier dissolving. Across these fourteen tracks, the outside world seeps in and the inside world crawls out. The result is a stunning and quietly moving work that reflects the journeys we take through the physical and spiritual realms of ourselves in order to show up for the world.

To capture the effortless blend of electronic, ambient, folk, and rock, Ballentine and her partner and collaborator Noah Weinman brought in producer Andrew Sarlo to record at Chicken Shack studio in Upstate New York, close to where Ballentine grew up.

As the album cover invites, these are dollhouse songs to which we bend a giant eye, peering into the laminate, luminous world that Ballentine has created. Like a kid constructing a shelter in a patch of sharp brambles, she reminds us that beauty and terror can exist in the same place. The complexities of childhood are so often overlooked, but through these private yet generous songs, she gives new weight to our earliest memories, widening the frame for us—even opening a window.

1. They Quiet the Room
2. Building a Swing
3. Whatever Fits Together
4. Whistle of the Dead
5. Lullaby in February
6. Pass Through Me
7. Could it be the way I look at everything?
8. Outside, playing
9. It’s Like a Secret
10. Sticker
11. Window Somewhere
12. (secret instrumental)
13. Quiet the Room
14. You are my House

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj7O0ojfHE0