Admit it, you all have different musical associations when you hear an artist name like Skullcrusher. And probably none of them include gentle and dreamy indie folk from California, right? But, apparently for Helen Ballentine it was the appropriate alter ego she needed to give her emotions a fitting musical surrounding. And the fact that she freshly signed to the Secretly Canadian gang proves that this choice wasn’t an obstacle at all. Places/Plans is a wonderful first musical sign of life, a reflective piece of ambient-infected dream folk. There’s a gentle “Nick-Drake-Pink-Moon” character that I sense in the song which isn’t the worst compliment one could give it. In its reflective notion the song is also a fitting soundtrack for our current quarantine life. According to Ballentine the track “attempts to communicate the beauty and vulnerability of being alone and what it means to let someone else in to see that.” And if that sort of sound speals to you, you should mark June 26 in you calender because that’s when Skullcrusher releases her self-titled debut EP.