INTERVIEW: Brimheim

Multi-instrumentalist Helena Heinesen Rebensdorff is finding strength in self scrutiny. On her second album, RATKING, the Danish-Faroese artist, who performs under the moniker Brimheim, finds catharsis in the contradictions of love and comfort in her own audaciously dark humour.

Released at the end of March, her latest effort is as raw as her 2022 debut offering, can’t hate myself into a different shape, but on RATKING, she vivaciously embraces remnants of shame, hyper-sensitivity and unrequited love, and sets them to a more pop-tinged, melodic backdrop.

Speaking to me on the same day that RATKING officially entered the world (mildly hungover from a panel event and performance the night before to celebrate its release), Brimheim is just as open to elaborating on her processes and reflecting on the highs and lows of creating music as she was when we initially connected two years ago.

Back then, she explained that the songs that formed her debut record were mined from a “deep depression hole” which she experienced towards the latter end of 2020. There are elements of this vulnerability and darkness on RATKING, but the starting point for creating her new album was completely different. Returning to the studio to work alongside esteemed producer, musician and friend Søren Buhl Lassen (Blaue Blume), Brimheim had no demos and no notes to spark the creative process; so the pair began improvising and experimenting with the sounds that eventually formed the tracklist for RATKING.

“I definitely think that I would not have been able to make this record with a new producer,” Brimheim comments about its inception. “It required trust to go to places that we’ve gone, both sonically, and with trying to expand the outer margins of what a Brimheim record can be.” She elaborates on how this was trust was initially built between Søren and herself: “Towards the end of creating the first record, Søren and I made this little interlude called ‘like a wedding’. It’s just this 40 second bit that we jammed in the studio. That worked so well and it was a really cool process. So, when we started making RATKING, we tried to do that for the whole album, and it was mostly a very intuitive process.”

As the pair worked more intensely on these new improvisations together, Brimheim noticed that thematic threads were beginning to appear. “I didn’t have any theme guiding me with what I wanted to do sonically, or lyrically. But after the first few weeks of working in that way, and gathering some songs that came very effortlessly to us, and how we could build on that – that’s when the process got a little more intentional and guided.”

This confidence in each other’s abilities takes many forms on RATKING. Whether it’s the fully fleshed band sound and distinctive instrumentation on tracks like ‘Dancing In The Rubble’ and ‘Keep Bleeding Diamonds’, the infectious pop melodies on singles ‘Literally Everything’, ‘Brand New Woman’ and ‘Normies’, or the sonically more expansive tracks like ‘No Liver, No Lungs’ and ‘Surgeon’, Brimheim and Søren have crafted an eclectic and exhilarating collection of lush alt-pop anthems.

When listening to RATKING, it feels as if Brimheim – as she states herself – is giving ‘Literally Everything’ to her listeners, coolly musing during the track that “It’s easier than I thought / To turn my secrets into your entertainment”. She agrees that her second offering is definitely “a more extroverted and confident record.”

Whilst the confessional lyrics on can’t hate myself into a different shape offered a raw, startling glimpse into the thoughts and struggles of an introverted and often vulnerable narrator, on RATKING, Brimheim gleefully leans into the “unreliable narrator” role. She fluctuates between intense romantic extrapolations and painful sentiments on heartbreak, isolation and neglect – often all within the same song. This is especially true of her current favourite track, ‘Fell Through The Ice’. “It has this quiet desperation,” she explains, “but it ends up spilling out like gall, and there is this humour in how ridiculously pathetic the narrator is in the song.”

We dive a little deeper into some of the album’s other tracks, particularly ‘No Liver, No Lungs’ and ‘Surgeon’, which I offer up as my favourites. “To me, they’re a little bit like the sleeper songs on the album,” she comments. “I think that they have a lot of depth and are really interesting. Those songs are the ones where we’re stripping away most of the ‘traditional rock band’ arrangement. They are mostly electronic.”

“With ‘No Liver, No Lungs’, I don’t remember much about making this song because it was so effortless. We chose to put ‘Surgeon’ after it on the tracklist, because we’d opened up the portal to that sonic world. So we could go a bit further into this world and make it a bit dark, even a little scary. When we created ‘Surgeon’, it was a long day in the studio. It is actually kind of an oppressive soundscape if you listen to it for 8 hours straight. But I think it was such a cool nuance to include. Again, to me, it is expanding the scope of the kind of music that I can make.”

Building on and expanding her artistry as Brimheim naturally extended into the accompanying visuals for RATKING. In the video for her first single ‘Literally Everything’, Brimheim is dressed luxuriously in baby pink, posturing and performing inside a dark barn amongst animals and their excrement – accurately serving the track’s title. She is toying with the duality of perception and expectation; what something looks like vs how it really feels – and how we often mask the truth from others and of course, from ourselves.

Brimheim manages to transform moments of intense discomfort into deliciously dark and humorous visual vignettes. Whether she’s enamoured with a strange, tentacle-headed monster in the accompanying video for candid earworm ‘Normies’, or force feeding herself prawn cocktail at the dining table inside an extravagant mansion in the visuals for ‘Brand New Woman’, she does so with a wry and knowing smile.

“Each of the video’s directors understood that there was a humour to this thing – it’s almost self-deprecating, but not, at the same time,” she elaborates. “It’s something that I love to play around with, and the videos underline that tone of voice in a good way. I was very happy about that.” This comes across especially strongly in the visuals for ‘Brand New Woman’, featuring fellow Danish singer/songwriter Emma Grankvist aka eee gee.

Brimheim’s brief to director Stine Emil was “housewife – but make it creepy”, so they rented a huge mansion north of Copenhagen for the shoot. “Stine really took that idea and ran with it in a super cool way,” she comments, “and I got to act a little bit at the end, which is something I’ve always wanted to try my hand at. That’s actually ended up with me being cast in a feature film that I’ll be shooting later this year too.”

Collaborating with like-minded artists, directors and producers, and the opportunities that arise from these experiences, is something that Brimheim is deeply excited and appreciative of. “It’s challenging and wonderful, and such a weird position to be in, launching your career towards your late twenties and early thirties,” she reflects. This extends to her feelings about her upcoming UK tour, which includes a headline show at The Lexington in London on 22nd May. “I’ve been dreaming about going on a tour like this since I was 12 years old,” she smiles. “I’m 34 now, and it took a long time to get here, but I am extremely excited.”

We end our conversation with a chat about an artist that she’s currently listening to. “I’m obsessed with Tony Njoku, who is just incredible,” she enthuses. “I know him privately and I’ve followed his journey throughout the past 7 years, when we met on a conservatory exchange week. He’s just released a new song, which is a neo-classical piece, but he also does really hard-hitting alternative electronic/alternative pop music. It’s just stellar. I cannot gush about him enough. He’s prolific. He releases so much music, and it’s always so different. He showed me some tracks that he’s working on and I’m like ‘okay, he is going to get very famous, very soon.’ He is just ridiculously good.”

Brimheim’s latest album RATKING is available here

Grab a ticket for her London headline show at The Lexington on 22nd May here

Follow Brimheim on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Photo by André Hansen

Kate Crudgington
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ALBUM: Brimheim – ‘can’t hate myself into a different shape’

“I am going to be completely honest with you,” confesses Danish-Faroese musician Helena Heinesen Rebensdorff aka Brimheim during the opening line of her exquisitely tender track ‘favorite day of the week’. It’s a simple enough statement, but she delivers it with startling conviction through her crystalline vocals and considered instrumentation. It’s this candid, yet tentative approach that makes listening to her debut album, can’t hate myself into a different shape, such a cathartic, rewarding experience. The follow up to her 2020 EP, Myself Misspelled, her new record is a poignant reflection on love in all its forms; romantic, platonic – and the hardest type to articulate and master – self love.

Brimheim – a name chosen as a homage to her roots in the Faroe Islands, translating as “home of the breaking waves” – worked alongside producer Søren Buhl Lassen to create the sublime sounds on her new record, which she mined from a “deep depression hole” during a global pandemic. Despite the raw and confessional nature of her music, the record is peppered with self-effacing humour and a strong sense of self-awareness, proving that even in the darkest moments of isolation, there’s still room for light and laughter, even if it is occasionally through gritted teeth.

Moving between the boundaries of alt-pop, grunge, shoegaze and electronic music, can’t hate myself into a different shape is an intense, brooding listen. “I have noticed that I am see through” Brimheim observes on the opening track ‘heaven help me i’ve gone crazy’, a frank but gentle expression of what it feels like to “pick at the edges” of yourself when your emotions have been muted by depression. What follows is a beautifully bruising unravelling of vulnerability, with title track ‘can’t hate myself into a different shape’ setting the emotionally resilient tone that permeates the record.

Whether it’s her soft plea for reassurance that she’s not “a burden” on ‘baleen feeder’ (a nod to the filter-feeding system inside the mouths of baleen whales), her disarming reflection on unconditional love for her wife on the atmospheric ‘lonely is beauty’ – “She is all I could need / Everyone else / Makes me feel lonely” – or a nostalgic ode to teenage friendship on ‘hey amanda’, Brimheim is a master at capturing a moment in its purest form. The exquisite, shadowy majesty of ‘poison fizzing on a tongue’ is a superb example of this, and further proof of her skill for transforming self-flagellation – “When I am finished resisting myself / I will be beaten senseless” – into poetic, exhilarating music.

The rawness of her lyrics on ‘straight into traffic’ are punctuated by fluctuating keys, as she resists the urge to give into thoughts of self harm, ending on a note of genuine hope: “Don’t give in, love / You’re more than enough.” On ‘this weeks laundry’ she extrapolates on the painful, yet absurdly relatable need to keep up appearances by “putting on foundation” for a “trip across the street” to disguise the fact you’re barely able to function. Brimheim pulls herself back from the brink each time, and even on the masochistically titled closing track ‘hurting me for fun’ – where she is pulling herself up “by my hair” – her self-effacing tendencies blossom into acute and astoundingly accurate observations of the effects these emotions can have on the human condition.

“I felt like I’d been in this black muddy place, not able to see anything and kind of drowning,” Brimheim revealed to us in an interview about creating the songs that formed can’t hate myself into a different shape. Carving her own path out of a deeply vulnerable state, she has managed to craft a stirring, intricately observed collection of life-affirming songs that chime with relatable melancholy, and that will undoubtedly provide comfort for listeners who may be living through a similar experience.

Brimheim’s debut album can’t hate myself into a different shape is released via W.A.S. Entertainment on 28th January. Pre-order your copy here

Follow Brimheim on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Hey Jack

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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LISTEN: Brimheim – ‘This Week’s Laundry’

A stirring, intricately observed guitar tune about trying to cultivate a “normal” routine during a time of deep vulnerability, Danish alt-pop artist Brimheim has shared her latest single ‘this week’s laundry’. Taken from her upcoming album can’t hate myself into a different shape, which is set for release on 28th January via W.A.S Entertainment, the track flows with her tender vocals and confessional lyrics, which chime with relatable melancholy.

“The song is an inner monologue about keeping up appearances,” Brimheim explains. “Attempts at adjusting very mundane things in life to feel in control. The collection of specific actions in the song – like buying frozen beans, sorting laundry, and skipping lunch – are all somewhat failed approximations of normalcy and balance. In reality, they just thinly veil existential loneliness and insecurity. It’s someone trying to convince themselves and everyone around them that they’re fine, when they are actually barely keeping it together. It’s like they’re live action role playing as a responsible adult. The lyrics list all these things to point out their banal absurdity as well as their relatability.”

With realistic lines like “I put on foundation for my trip across the street / I am getting a new bag of frozen beans / ‘cause that’s a good way to sneak some greens into a meal / although fresh would be ideal” – Brimheim’s rich guitar sounds and exquisite emotional resilience shine through on ‘this week’s laundry’. She pulls herself back from the brink with an understated confidence, providing comfort for listeners who may be living through a similar experience.

Listen to ‘this week’s laundry’ below.

Follow Brimheim on bandcamp, Spotify, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Hey Jack

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Soho Rezanejad – ‘Half The Shore’

Uncompromising is a word that’s used to describe a number of musicians, but rarely does it seem truer than with Danish artist, composer and playwright Soho Rezanejad. Digging through her back-catalogue, both under her own name and that of her alter-ego, Angeles, is like uncovering a series of art installations crossed with epic movie soundtracks – as daunting, impressive and overpowering as a mountain range.

Born in New York City before growing up in Copenhagen, Rezanejad seems to carry all manner of influences in her work to date – from the synth orchestrals of Vangelis, the no-quarter given vocals of Nico, and the industrial, goth and post-punk sounds of various British acts of the 1980s. That sense of movement and diverse influences is also reflected in her latest album Perform and Surrender – to be released by the artist’s own Silicone Records in December – which results from a series of performances in Copenhagen, Vienna, Helsingør, Munich, Montreal, Toronto, St. Petersburg, Tromsø and Nantes across 2018 and 2019.

‘Half The Shore’, taken from Perform and Surrender, actually offers a notable change from Rezanejad’s previous work. Opening with a minute of strummed guitar, and gently picked notes that echo in an alt.country style, this is a far more approachable piece than perhaps anything Rezanejad has released before. The voice that follows is shot through with a raw balladic quality.

“Love without trust is a river without water”, she sings, “so don’t leave me”. In a sense, this is old in style and emotion, made new; an artist seeking a brave new front in more antiquated fashions. According to Rezanejad herself, the album was taken from “small scores, bits of stage direction, with performances special to each…” As this suggests, there is the hint of something slightly off-the-cuff to ‘Half The Shore’, not least in the vocalising that teems through the track’s instrumentation like sunlight through mist, around the 2 minute 40 mark. That said, and despite a sensibility that it is perhaps more organic than many of the songs on Rezanejad’s previous LPs, there is still a story being told here, and this is still a soundtrack, of sorts. “I lost someone very dear to me at the time” says Soho Rezanejad of the creation of Perform and Surrender, “All things…resembled a testimony of life and death”. 

An album that is bathed in the rumination that follows loss, ‘Half The Shore’ is one of two tracks that prominently feature strings – the other is the preceding track, ‘Absence’, a violin-led elegy – and both sit at the album’s centre. Nature too, is hidden in spaces within the tracks: the songs of birds appear just at the close of ‘Half The Shore’ as it segues into ‘Hera’, for one example, quite literally dovetailing with but also acting in optimistic opposition to the album’s recurring aspect of mourning.

And what of that title too, just what is ‘Half The Shore’. Evoking images of cliffs crumbling and land being part-swallowed by the sea, the cataclysm that is ongoing but not completed. And yet in the phrase too is optimism – a sense of returning to land, a glimpse of something firm to come back to. You get the impression that, with Soho Rezanejad, there are no obvious or easy answers.

 

Perform And Surrender, the upcoming album from Soho Rezanejad, is out 4th December via Silicone Records.

John McGovern
@etinsuburbiaego

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