Helaine Vis will release her second album, “These Little Games We’re Playing,” in 2023.
The album combines intimate and empowering elements in a blend of Neo-Soul and Trip-Hop. Helaine Vis is an artist who uses her voice to convey meaningful messages. Her voice is her tool, her toy. She creates art through storytelling. Finding a good story involves more than idling on a flower meadow. It requires delving into the depths, enduring hardships, and encountering the extraordinary.
After two years of work, Helaine returns to the surface with her new album. She doesn’t need to play a role or disguise herself. Occasionally, a touch of self-irony surfaces in her art. Life doesn’t have to be simple when it can be complicated. Why engage in a game you can only lose? One of Amy Winehouse’s quotes opens the concept album, exploring absurd, dangerous, humorous, and self-destructive games people play with each other.
love is a losing game
“Games” is the album’s opening track and first single. It is a reflective song, a poetic depiction of the end of the beginning. Helaine’s calm and intimate storytelling is accompanied by piano chords and the nostalgic crackle of vinyl. The song explores human connections, longing, expectations, closeness, and fear. It portrays a game for two evenly matched opponents, but sadly, with no prospects of victory for either. As the trip-hop influence amplifies the melancholic mood and the weight of the beat increases, Helaine’s voice defies the laws of physics and soars. The honesty and vulnerability in her voice make her strong. She could end the song with a sarcastic smile, but instead, effortlessly and with a smile full of understanding for past mistakes, she finishes it.
pretty cliché, isn´t ít?
Helaine Vis is not a solitary fighter. While she doesn’t constantly crave the spotlight, her voice demonstrates that she knows her worth. She seeks closeness with others in her personal life and her music. She is skilled in her craft, and more importantly, she infuses her music with a lot of personality, sensuality, and openness. As a Berlin resident, she draws inspiration from the city’s music scene, encompassing swag jams, hip-hop, jazz, and electronic music. She has experienced loss, struggle, and personal growth, shedding her old skin and finding kindred spirits. With “Pretty Cliché” (2021) being her debut album, Helaine successfully follows it up with “These Little Games We’re Playing.”
Both albums are released by SPRINGSTOFF and demonstrate Helaine’s affinity for classic soul. Her nuanced voice sets the pace and permeates the records. The intensification of her artistry with each song and each syllable is partly due to her intense collaboration with the production duo, Re.Decay. With great attention to detail, they provide each song with its unique sound without losing sight of the album’s distinctive, lo-fi-inspired vision. What comes next? “These Little Games We’re Playing” is not a hasty or polite album. It confidently establishes its place and thrives in the down-tempo realm. The second track, “No Sugar,” exudes self-assurance with its laid-back flow and empowering lyrics, emphasizing the importance of resilience and standing up for oneself. The self-respect that Helaine has earned is contagious. The album also includes wordless declarations of love in “Fingers,” smoky ballads like “Love The Way They Love Me”, and concludes with smooth neo-soul and an extended Cadillac outro. game over
