herbal tea announce new album Hear as the Mirror Echoes, share music video for "Seventeen" Posted 08 Jul 2025
British artist herbal tea's debut album Hear as the Mirror Echoes drifts in and out like a half-remembered dream. Shaped slowly by songwriter/producer Helena Walker from late-night demos that gradually bloomed into expansive arrangements.
Drawing on dream pop, ambient folk, and lo-fi production, and citing influences from Sparklehorse to Sharon Van Etten, there's an otherworldly quality in the way it softly reimagines the familiar. From the ethereal slowcore of "Seventeen" to the 70s folk-inspired "Driving Slow", each track belongs to its own distinct world. The songs swell with ambient textures and bursts of distortion, building into cinematic crescendos before folding back into quiet moments of sparse piano and lo-fi dissonance. Helena's vocals, often recorded at the time of writing, are ghostly with an undercurrent of gravity, submerged within layers of rich harmonies. Themes of impermanence, dissociation, and emotional transience run throughout, with lyrics lifted from dreams, old diaries, and moments of stream-of-consciousness.
“I’ve always felt like a bit of an outsider, and making music is my
escape.”
Helena says. “I hope this album can be that escape for someone
else.”
Orindal (US) & Gold Day (UK) will release Hear as the Mirror Echoes on vinyl, cassette & digital formats on August 29, 2025. Today we're sharing the album's first single "Seventeen" & its accompanying music video directed by Chris Pugh.
One of Helena’s earliest self-recordings, the first of which she felt truly represented her, “Seventeen” has been through several stylistic transformations since the original demo, a process that helped her and, collaborator and childhood friend, Henry C Sharpe (Sleep Radio) develop the overarching sound of the record.
Sonically the song is a lush, cinematic wall of noise combining hazy guitars, piano and synths with Helena’s dreamlike, layered vocals. It’s a tantalising glimpse into her universe. “‘Seventeen’ was written whilst processing trauma, dissociation and a longing to feel free. I wrote the lyrics in a stream of consciousness. It was one of the first songs where I used songwriting and recording as a form of therapy.” Helena elaborates on the themes behind the single. “I held onto this song for years, but it was hard to get it to fit sonically. It went through so many versions until it finally captured the feeling of the demo. That process ended up sparking a domino effect for the sounds and textures that became the foundation of the entire album. There is a section halfway where the chaos stills and the piano and vocals re-emerge. It’s one of my favourite moments on the record.”
Pre-order Hear as the Mirror Echoes on vinyl, cassette & digital formats HERE.
