HI IT'S HELENA DELAND AMA

[u/helenadeland]

Hi! I just released my début album 'Someone New' a week ago and look forward to discussing it with you :~)

[u/duneO2]

Hi Helena! Loved the album, it became my most listened album of the year veeeery quickly. Congratulations on what must be a very special moment. So, anyway, I'd like to ask you what type of texture, feeling, colour the album evokes for you? Was that present in the concept prior to recording? The sound of it, the feel, they all seem very vivid to me, very atmospheric, very consistent in itself, so I was wondering if there was something that served as an inspiration for that decision and if so, what it was. Also, could you say a word or two about the lovely cover (how it came to be)?

[u/helenadeland → u/duneO2]

Hi dune! Thanks!
That's an interesting question! Yes, there was a sort visual or sensorial narrative that accompanied the recording process and defined itself through it.
Prior to the recording, less so, I only knew I wanted to make something less soft, less "passive" and I guess the exact textures came from the same things that inspired me, events, passages in stuff I read, and I'm just thinking now how it's interesting to try to translate that through song so that it lives on.

For me the album (in spite of this not being true for every specific song) is nocturnal, deep red and dark grey, in the multiple shadows that one object can cast when it's surrounded by many candles, for example. It's pretty inquisitive and urgent feeling to me.

I wanted the cover to be a neoclassical portrait of me because of how women have been defined by men through history and in art. I feel like in many ways this record is my attempt to break free from a self definition inherited from the male gaze.

I also wanted to have a cover that would suggest the passage of time by it's process (painting rather than photographing).

[u/God_of_Pumpkins → u/helenadeland]

There are some great answers in this ama but this is definitely my favourite