ABOUT

David Helpling is a California-based guitarist, keyboardist, recording artist and film composer of ambient and electronic music. His solo releases include his debut, Between Green and Blue and Sleeping On The Edge Of The World. His collaborative ventures with Jon Jenkins resulted in a trilogy of beloved albums: Treasure, The Crossing, and Found. Rune continued his solo journey into ambient guitar explorations of new places under the sea. Helpling’s new album, IN, is a multi-instrumental take on the infinitesimal and the infinite, rich with vocal and instrumental collaborations featuring Miriam Stockley, Nidhi Bhatmuley, Matthew Stewart, Benjy Wertheimer, Matthew Schoening.
IN cover

DISC 1

1. WAVES DREAM OF BREAKING (7:33) / 2. THIS BURNING SKY (7:20) FEATURING NIDHI BHATMULEY/ 3. ONLY WHAT’S BEEN TAKEN (6:26) / 4. HERE ALL ALONG (6:25) / 5. STILL AS STONE (6:12) / 6 . HE BLISS YOU’VE ALWAYS CARRIED (8:01) FEATURING BENJY WERTHEIMER

DISC 2

1. SLIPPING (8:01)  FEATURING MIRIAM STOCKLEY / 2. THE COLD DISTANCE BETWEEN (5:56) / 3. YOU ALREADY ARE (6:42) FEATURING MATTHEW SCHOENING / 4. FOLLOWING THE LINES (5:31) / 5. BENDING TOWARDS THE NIGHT (8:21) / 6. IN WAVES OF FIRE (5:50) / 7. I TOO AM COMING HOME (6:44) FEATURING MIRIAM STOCKLEY
Before David Helpling released his trilogy of epic ambient collaborations with Jon Jenkins, before his shimmering guitar records A Sea Without Memory and RUNE—he had an idea that would evolve to become IN. A massive double album composed over ten years, IN was born from finding wonder in the tiniest of places. Only one square inch of forest holds a world of color and life. On this miniature scale, a shard of lichen is a monument, a twig a skyscraper, an arm’s length a universe. IN is an exploration of that magic space: an expanse of delicate subtlety and minuscule vibrancy that suggests a poignancy of existence itself.

IN builds this world with sounds from across Helpling’s career. Hear diamond-bright granular textures atop churning synths on wistful opener “Waves Dream of Breaking.” Chimes and echoes conjure cavernous yearning on “The Cold Distance Between,” while the climactic “In Waves of Fire” ascends on thundering drums before a shattering crescendo. Across this cinematic album, analogue synthesizers, digital synthesizers and ambient guitar entwine, untangle and entwine again. Yet here, Helpling explores new instruments as well as familiar ones. A 1981 Yamaha CP70 Electric Grand Piano summons a classic, fresh organic sound as it explores the vast scenes set by his textural guitar. This piano murmurs across chasms in the aftermath of “Bending Towards the Night,” augmenting the well-established sound palette cultivated throughout years of previous works.

Unique and diverse artists stepped into David Helpling’s vision with their own inspired expressions. Portland fine art photographer Brandt Campbell captured IN’s micro-world in breathtaking macrophotography. Co-producer Howard Givens worked closely with Helpling to explore the hidden nuances of this album and elevate each piece to its final form. Matthew Schoening’s electric cello is enchanting and elegiac on “You Already Are.” Miriam Stockley lends her rich, ethereal vocals to “Slipping” and “I Too Am Coming Home,” balancing hope and melancholy with each ebb and flow of her voice. Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Benjy Wertheimer plays the Esraj, an expressive bowed instrument from India, on the buoyant “The Bliss You Always Carried.” Vocalist Nidhi Bhatmuley gives a soaring performance on the post-rock flavored “This Burning Sky,” an emotional epic that evokes Hans Zimmer’s work with Lisa Gerrard. Through these significant contributions, Helpling has realized a macro-focus on his contemplation of life.

Inspired by the vastness of small spaces, IN is both simple and intricate, both expansive and intimate. And just as the spaces that inspired them, these thirteen pieces unveil new images when examined. Here, a pebble by a stream is a fjord falling into the sea. Here, nature wrought in new colors; the greens and blues of tree and sky replaced by microbial fuchsia, folded violet. Here, a world—vivid, vibrant, waiting.  


ARTIST BIO

David Helpling

As a young teen, David Helpling pushed himself to learn guitar – experimenting with various effects and signal processors to create illusions with sound. Together with his passion for synthesizers and percussion, this guitar sound became centric to a complete vision and musical style that expresses powerful sonic moods with a definite soundtrack feel.


“Music is always in my head. That’s how I write. I’m always dreaming.”


David’s debut release, Between Green and Blue, was a finalist for the INDIE Album-Of-The-Year award. On his second release, Sleeping On The Edge Of The World, the artist took his unmistakable style and dense sound sculptures to a deeper, more powerful and cinematic level.


Working side by side with Jon Jenkins, David’s driven pursuit to create the music of his dreams was fully realized with the release of their trilogy of albums Treasure, The Crossing, and Found. The international success of these collaborative albums proves that the combination of these two artists is explosive and limitless.


Helpling and Jenkins are fearless in their pursuit of the lush and monumental sound that dominates their artistic vision, and their work together contains all the essentials for an epic musical journey. From the epic trilogy with Jon Jenkins, David turned to the deep inspiration of the Sea with two deeply emotional ambient guitar releases: A Sea Without Memory and RUNE. The latter, a fully orchestrated and shimmering melodic album using only electric guitars as the textural palette.


Now, in 2022, David has revealed his double album, IN, which returns to his multi-instrumental style for the first time since Sleeping On the Edge Of The World. Crafted over a decade, this rich release comes in at almost 90 minutes, and is available on 2x vinyl, 2x CD, mp3 and Spatial Audio. The music explodes with the power of subsonic drums, pulsing synthesizers and searing new complex textures as clear phrasing reveals an unforgettable sound. “IN” is a personal and timeless work crafted over expansive time that seems to build and flow in dreams and thunder with each listen.
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