It is always something special when an artist shares all of thier artistic talents with the world. These creative skills usually extend beyond just one medium. Unfortunately, we often only hear one piece of the puzzle that the artist is pushed to focus on. This is not the case with the extensively talented Helen America.
The Seattle, Washington based artist extends from singer/songwriter to multimedia artist, to cartoonist, and zine maker. Helen America self describes her genre description fittingly as freak-folk indie chamber pop. To showcase all of this, she released her imaginative full-length multi-media album Red Sun. Along with the CD comes a 12’ booklet of visceral yet compelling artwork.
Today is the official release of the third single “Pygmalion” off the Red Sun album. Helen America gave us her explanation of the track. She says “The more angry punk songs, as well as all the illustrations of girl and women monsters in the book, are my response to the destruction of the world all around us in late capitalism, an attempt to articulate a new mythology that can carry something worth carrying through the apocalypse. There’s a revolutionary power in the seven lady-monsters just dancing and rejoicing and living even underneath the red sun and in the dying world.”
The raw energy of the song permeates through the distorted guitar sounds creating a grungy vibe to set the tone. Another juxtaposition is the way Helen America sings her pretty sounding vocals but digging into the provocative lyrics is not very pretty at all. This is music for the listener that takes in all that is offered and enjoys music with meaning.
Keep tabs on what’s next from Helen America on her WEBSITE.
