by Jane Roser
“Quirky and compelling. Primal, but ghostly. Lovely, but devilish.” Singer/songwriter and actress Eszter Balint’s music has been described as all of these, and you really do need to use several adjectives to define this sultry songstress; I would add heartfelt, introspective and seductive. With powerful, smoky vocals that are reminiscent of Etta James, Chrissie Hynde with a touch of Edith Piaf, Balint delivers her jazz/blues/rock-tinged songs chock full of texture and emotion. Balint’s long awaited third album, Airless Midnight, will be released July 10th and promises to be just as hauntingly beautiful as her previous records, Flicker (1999) and Mud (2004).
“It was a consuming project and more different to make physically,” explains Balint. “It’s getting harder to make records in today’s music climate because there are so many costs involved and the funds are hard to come by; that equation is more and more lopsided and therefore more and more difficult.” Airless Midnight was funded by a PledgeMusic drive.
“There was also a longer gap [between this album and the last two] and I had a little more confidence, but then I’d say that would be true for each record. I feel like the songs have a playful sense of freedom and I think what I really enjoy most about this album is that it sounds mature and confident and it feels like a cinematic story.”
Recorded at New York’s Brooklyn Recording and Richmond’s Montrose Recording, this is Balint’s third collaboration with producer JD Foster. The album features artists she’s worked with in the past, including guitarists Chris Cochrane, Marc Ribot and Dave Schramm. Engineer Andy Taub also returns, making Airless Midnight a family reunion, of sorts.
“So much time has passed since the last album [Mud was released in 2004], I think if I had done it a lot closer to my second album, I would have felt more nervous to try something new [with a different producer], but we both had enough time to grow and change so I wasn’t worried about falling back into old habits. I’ve evolved as an artist and trusted that he had too, but a little bit of familiarity is almost necessary. It’s such a harsh world, it’s good to have a few members of your tribe in there so you’re not all alone in new terrain.”
Every song which Balint recorded for the album made it on there, nothing was nixed. Always open to the fact that each listener takes away something different from her songs, Balint is hesitant to discuss a song’s meaning, wanting to exude a bit of mystery and leave it open to interpretation. One track she’s very excited about is a ballad called “Exit At Sixty-Three” which was inspired by her dad.
“The song has many dimensions,” says Balint, “it’s about my dad, it’s about growing old, it’s about being lonely, it’s about being insane, but it’s also about love and moving towards that place where we’re all going. It’s very universal, but I think at the heart of it, the theme of love is the most important.”
Finding the album title to be provocative, haunting, but also slightly claustrophobic, I ask Balint how Airless Midnight wound up winning the yellow ribbon. “I’ve never struggled with an album title the way I have with this one,” she explains, “and the more I thought about it, the more it wasn’t coming to me and that almost sent me into a week-long depression. Looking over the lyrics, I knew there was something about midnight air that was going on and different times of day-dusk came up a few times, then I literally woke up one morning and before I was conscious that phrase just popped into my head. It’s one of those moments where I had nothing to do with it, it just came to me after weeks of torture.”
Growing up in an extended family of avant-garde theatrical performers, originally from Hungary, Balint’s family settled down in New York in 1977 and continued to entertain out of their home theater company.
“When you grow up in that kind of environment, you think that’s just what’s normal, so I took it for granted. It was only later that I realized that most people’s lives are not like this,” Balint laughs.” “It’s a pretty exceptional and extraordinary way to grow up and the greatest influence on me, for better or for worse, was this group of people who lived their lives making art. That level of passion and commitment was something I related to at an early age. I’ve tried living without it for short periods of time and I can’t. It’s not really a choice and I’ve really enjoyed my life since I made peace with that and accepted that this is who I am. That early influence cut so deep that it’s become a part of me.”
As well as being an accomplished vocalist and violinist (Balint made her recording debut at age 15 when she played violin on a track produced by iconic artist Jean Michel Basquiat), she has appeared in several films, including Stranger Than Paradise, Trees Lounge and Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog. Last year saw Balint starring in six episodes of Louis C.K.’s FX series Louie as his Hungarian girlfriend Amia. She just finished filming her scenes for the upcoming Robert Scott Wildes film Poor Boy also starring Amanda Crew, Michael Shannon and Dale Dickey. “I shot it in Las Vegas, which is funny because I swore I’d never go back there, but I actually had a really good time.”
Balint is hoping to schedule a fall tour to hit parts of the east coast including Philly, Boston and D.C. and would rather not wait another ten years to record her next album. “I’m already dabbling with writing more songs, but otherwise it’s all a mystery. I really love doing this but,”Balint laughs,” it’s kind of a tough racket, I don’t know if you’ve heard.”
