Chelsea Wolfe

Chelsea Wolfe announces new album "Pain Is Beauty" to be released on Sept 3rd with new album trailer and Fall headline Tour dates

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 12:43:00 -0700

Chelsea Wolfe announces the release of her new album Pain Is Beauty on September 3, 2013 worldwide on Sargent House. Chelsea and her band will also embark on a full US headlining tour to coincide with the new album. See full track listing and all dates below this new album trailer video.

Pain Is Beauty - Tracklisting
1. Feral Love
2. We Hit a Wall
3. House of Metal
4. The Warden
5. Destruction Makes the World Burn Brighter
6. Sick
7. Kings
8. Reins
9. Ancestors, the Ancients
10. They’ll Clap When You’re Gone
11. The Waves Have Come
12. Lone

Chelsea Wolfe NY & EU Dates
6/13 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw / Northside Music Fest w/ Swans
8/02 - Cork, Ireland @ Indiependent Music Fest
8/03 - Katowice, Poland @ OFF Festival

CHELSEA WOLFE PAIN IS BEAUTY TOUR 2013
8/25 - Los Angeles, CA @ FYF Fest, LA History Park
9/01 - Tucson, AZ @ HOCO Festival
9/03 - Phoenix, AZ @ The Crescent Ballroom
9/04 - Albuquerque, NM @ Launchpad
9/06 - Austin, TX @ Mohawk
9/07 - Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s
9/08 - New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks
9/09 - Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
9/10 - Chapel Hill @ Local 506
9/11 - Washington DC @ Rock and Roll Hotel
9/13 - NYC, New York @ Bowery Ballroom
9/14 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
9/15 - Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair
9/17 - Toronto, ONT @ The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern
9/19 - Pontiac, MI @ The Pike Room at Crofoot Ballroom
9/20 - Lexington, KY @ Boomslang Festival
9/21 - Chicago, IL - The Bottom Lounge
9/22 - Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar Cultural Center
9/24 - Denver, CO - Larimer Lounge
9/25 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Urban Lounge
9/27 - Seattle, WA @ Barboza
9/28 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir Lounge
9/30 - San Francisco, CA @ Great American Music Hall

Chelsea Wolfe to play this Years FYF Fest on Sunday August 25th

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:38:38 -0700

Ticket info HERE

Echoes And Dust Live Show Review: Chelsea Wolfe in Leeds

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:20:01 -0700

Chelsea Wolfe has already made quite an impression in her career to date. Her ability to combine old fashioned folk songwriting with elements of drone and psychedelia may not be as remarkably original as some will have you believe but the mixture is potent to say the least. With a band of four in tow, this date marks Wolfe’s first performance in Leeds and the main room of The Cockpit is fairly full to welcome her to West Yorkshire. The message, it seems, has spread.

Chelsea Wolfe initially emerges flanked by a violinist and a keyboard player, brandishing an acoustic guitar, and a voice that could halt any passer-by in their tracks. Despite the fact that the crowd are obviously expecting something louder the first few tracks are rapturously received and if anything it’s slightly disappointing when the violin and acoustic guitar departs to be replaced by two electric guitars and drums. Soon enough though the second half of the set proves equally arresting, despite the occasional moment when the aforementioned upstairs gig is audible at inappropriate moments.

Wolfe’s live band are far from showy, that much is true, but the added texture given to her songs by their involvement is what makes this an unforgettable performance. At times the reverberations of her voice and some simple finger-picking is enough to send the audience into hypnotic rapture but it is the dissonant, slightly krautrockian ending to the main set takes things to another level. Indeed, the power achieved by both sound incarnations, quiet and loud, is almost Swans-like in its graceful ferocity. Unmissable.

Interview and live review of Chelsea Wolfe - Antwerp May 6, 2013

Thu, 09 May 2013 12:00:00 -0700

On May 6th, Chelsea Wolfe played a fantastic concert at the Trix in Antwerp. Before the concert, Phil Blackmarquis had the opportunity to meet Chelsea for an exclusive interview, done together with Michael Thiel, aka Weyrd Son, founder of Weyrd Son Records and a huge fan of the American singer/songwriter.
(Check the review of the concert here.)

PhB: Thank you very much for this interview. You are in the middle of your European Tour right now. How is it?
It’s been cool. It’s been different than usual because we’re doing a half acoustic, half electric set, so it’s been a little wierd sometimes to balance the energies of the two different sets. But it works out well.

PhB: Why did you decide to split the concerts in two sets?
We had the new(ish) acoustic album that had come out in October, so we incorporated a fair amount of it in the set but without doing an entire acoustic show, just to challenge the ‘old’ songs with something new… And we split the show in two sets…

PhB: In the US, I think it was only acoustic?
Yes, it was a suggestion from some of the venues that we’d do an acoustic and an electric set and it kind of worked out, so…

WS: Is your acoustic album, “Unknown Rooms” a sort of bridge for you between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Chelsea Wolfe, especially since you changed label?
I think so. My label had asked me if I wanted to do an acoustic album because I had so many old acoustic songs. People were asking me when I was going to release songs like ‘Flatlands’, which I had done years ago but hadn’t released yet. So, when the idea came up and I started compiling these old recordings, I decided to do some new ones as well. At the same time, I wanted to get away from the imagery of my former label, Pendu.

WS: Is there any reason why you hadn’t released these old songs before? Because, to me, they have as much strength as songs from ‘The Grime And The Glow’, for instance.
There’s no real reason. Music often happens without order or time, you know. The album that come out this fall has songs which I composed two years ago. It’s all about finding the right time and context for a song rather than writing it and putting it on a record immediately. Sometimes, it’s an older song that seems to fit or something you’ve just written that helps putting the puzzle together.

PhB: I heard that ‘Unknown Rooms’ has entered the charts in the US?
I have no idea. I don’t know.

WS: It’s something we saw on your Wikipedia page. It says that this album is your first album to enter the Billboard charts in the US. (Note: No. 25 in the folk chart and No. 35 in the Heatseekers chart)

WS: On the next album, there will be several electronic songs. Is it something to do with the ‘Wild Eyes’ project you have with Ben Chisholm?
Yes, we’ve had that project for several years but it just didn’t do right to have it separated from the Chelsea Wolfe project because it’s the same people, Ben and I. Same vibe, just a different sound and different instruments so we decide to combine both in one project.

PhB: Like the new song, ‘Kings’, for instance, which you play, would you say it is an example of a new song in the style of Wild Eyes?
Yes, it’s one of the songs that come from it.

WS: So, Wild Eyes is totally behind you now?
As a project, yes. A lot of the songs end up on the new album…

PhB: And are you going to release the cover of ‘Dark Rooms’? I really love it.
‘Dark Rooms’? You mean that civer we did a long time ago? I don’t remember why we did that. No, I don’t think we will release it.

PhB: So the next album is planned for September/October? I understand it will be more electronic, but also folk and rock?
Yes, with a wide range. It’s gonna be on Sargent House as well.

PhB: Do you already have a name for the album?
I have one, pretty positive but I’m not sure I can tell already, but we will announce it pretty quickly. So I have to make up my mind.

PhB: You also played another new song, ‘Feral Love’ yesterday?
Yes, this one has been there for a while as well but we re-recorded it for the new album.

WS: I read in an interview that you wanted to do something with a choir of singers?
It’s always been like a desire to do that. You know: I have a lot of idea’s I want to try out but I hope I have enough time to keep experimenting with things like that.

WS: Every album is quite different, that’s the great strength of your music!
PhB: You also introduced a violin on the last album, with the very talented Andrea Calderon?
Yes, she played on the acoustic album and also on the new album, so…

WS: Will she become part of the band?
I don’t think it’s permanent but probably for a number of shows and tours.. In every tour, we try to make things a little bit different so,;.. But she’s definitely a great addition to the project. I love to be able to have the vocal harmonies. It’s always hard to find someone who is good at harmonies and she is really good.

PhB: And her instrumental bridge on the violin between the two sets is really nice!
Yes: I asked if she could write something and she came up with that really fast…

PhB: Let’s talk about your sources of inspiration and your lyrics. Why this fascination for death, car accidents and all these things?
All of my songs have to do with death because I’ve never really had to deal with it. No one close to me has ever died yet. And I think that singing and writing about it is my way to try to understand it. I’m also interested in materialities of the world, natural disasters, the way that life is shaken up so quickly and unexpectedly. You think about life as a routine and one day, an earthquake or a tsunami can change it all in a second. That’s the kind of things that I find interesting to write songs…

WS: What about this song, ‘Boyfriend’: I knew it was a cover but I didn’t know that Ben (Chisholm) co-composed it.
Yes, it was composed by Karlos Rene Ayala, a friend from my hometown, which we both knew before we started playing music together. I really loved this song when I heard it and I didn’t realize that he had played on it, so we ended up redoing that song on the acoustic album.

WS: How was the tribute to Rudimentary Peni received? Because it didn’t really get lot of coverage in the press.
I think some people were confused. I called it a Tribute album because it’s not just covers, I just took the lyrics. But I haven’t heard anything negative about it, apart from people being mad about the way the songs were covered but I like it a lot!

WS: Are you still in touch with the guys from the band?
They heard the album and seemed to like it. C. Orr did the artwork for it.

PhB: What happened in Aachen? You had to change the venue a few days before the concert?
It’s because of a cover I did years ago and the guys of the venue thought that we were a fascist group. So, we were kicked out of the festival where we were supposed to play, so we ended up playing at the Musikbunker, which is ok. It was a nice show; I liked the place. It’s too bad that people associate us with things like that. I don’t want to be insensitive; I’m not from Germany so I understand that feeling, with history, you know… But I don’t want to be associated with fascism…

PhB: Thank you very much, Chelsea!

www.chelseawolfe.net

Chelsea Wolfe's You Are My Sunshine featured in The Killing Season 3 promo

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:05:45 -0700

This show is scary good.

The Hot Press: Live Review - Dublin Ireland on April 24, 2013

Thu, 09 May 2013 10:05:15 -0700

Statuesque and striking, Chelsea Wolfe has only a violinist and keyboard player for company. She instantly captivates with an opening salvo of ethereal folk numbers from her current album, Unknown Rooms: A Collection Of Acoustic Songs. Her graceful voice both heals and devastates on the dark, haunting ‘Flatlands’ and ‘Boyfriend’.

She trades acoustic guitar for electric, returning with an axe-man and drummer for the second half of the performance, made up almost exclusively of tracks from 2011’s Apokalypsis LP. Huge walls of sound are slowly constructed, with elements of drone-metal, noise and blues drowning out Wolfe’s folkie timbre. The deafening climax of ‘Pale On Pale’ is drenched in reverb and enormous, swelling vocal loops. She’ll need a bigger venue next time.

CHELSEA WOLFE will play again in Cork, Ireland at the Indiependence Music & Arst Festival on August 2, 2013 on the Sargent House Stage.

STATE MAGAZINE: Live Review Chelsea Wolfe - Dublin

Wed, 01 May 2013 13:40:16 -0700

It’s a miserable, grey evening in Dublin, but a gig at the Sugar Club is always somewhat of a transporting experience. While the light drizzle is altogether souring, there’s just something about the darkness and plush comfort of the Leeson St venue that easily shuts out such menial annoyances. With the right performer, it can become cocoon-like and suitably intense. Chelsea Wolfe, the ethereal Sacremento singer-songwriter with a lingering gothic sensibility, is such a performer, but until she comes on stage, Simon Bird will provide some blustering background listening.

Wolfe strides into view, wearing an ankle-length black skirt and a long-sleeved white top. She’s markedly slender and her face is largely covered by a mop of raven hair. With no drummer, she’s only accompanied by a violinist and a keyboardist/bassist. A small band will suffice for now as the set’s opening half takes solely from Wolfe’s 2012 album Unknown Rooms, a collection of acoustic songs that constitutes her most refined and affecting work to date.

The opening strains of ‘Appalachia’ usher the set into life and slowly gather momentum. At this point, everyone has found their spot to sit or stand and ended their conversations. Attention needs to be paid when a performer is so willfully quiet, but such reticence only focuses the audience’s attention. ‘Spinning Centers’ [sic] is the sound of the big bad wolf beckoning naive children deeper and deeper into the forest, which is appropriate, as Wolfe and her two backing musicians have that same creeping magnetism and eerie charisma.

It’s hypnotic at times, and the wonderful one-two punch of ‘Flatlands’ and ‘Boyfriend’ is truly flooring. The former is very simple in construction but undeniably effective in execution and builds with gloomy inevitability towards its spine-tingling chorus. You wonder why songs like ‘Flatlands’ haven’t been around forever; they just seem so obviously great that it seems stupid that nobody wrote them sooner. ‘Boyfriend’ does a great job of following-up, however, and never once lets go of a captivated audience, but shakes loose of acoustic limitations with a boggy, plodding keyboard line at its end. With that and a brief, violin-led interlude, Wolfe and co. exit.

A full band returns without that bewitching violinist, unfortunately, and the set’s second half is far more raw, taking from Wolfe’s first two albums, Apokalypsis and The Grime and the Glow. Although the second half may be more sternum-shattering in its intentions, it by and large fails to match the impact made by the first. Sure, the drummer makes his presence known on ‘Demons’, but it is not until the raucous ‘Moses’ that brute force prove as indelible in their breathless impact as earlier peaks.

‘Movie Screen’ is wispy and meandering allowing everyone a few minutes to breath before the finale, ‘Pale on Pale’, which matches ‘Moses’ for volume and aggression, adding its own disorientating intensity. It’s over suddenly and a focused atmosphere dissipates in an instant as some move to front to converse with Wolfe and her band. Meeting a musician tends to rid them of any enduring mystique they might have, replacing perceptions with an actual person while generally highlighting their on-stage ability. Wolfe is polite and humbled in person and anything but on stage.

Chelsea Wolfe headlinging European & Russian Tour begins April 24th

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 13:51:00 -0700

Chelsea Wolfe’s European headline tour begins this Wednesday April 24th in Dublin her first time playing in Ireland. For this tour she has brought along her Violin player and will be performing a combination of both acoustic and electric songs (new and old) for these very special shows.

SEE ALL SHOW DETAILS TICKET LINKS AND UPDATES HERE.

CHELSEA WOLFE EU 2013
Apr 24, 2013 - Dublin, Ireland @ The Sugar Club
Apr 25, 2013 - Belfast, N. Ireland @ Auntie Annie’s Porterhouse
Apr 27, 2013 - Praha, Czech Republic @ Lucerna Music Bar
Apr 28, 2013 - Berlin, Germany @ Kantine am Berghine
Apr 29, 2013 - København, Denmark @ Vega
Apr 30, 2013 - Stockholm, Sweden @ Debaser Medis
May 02, 2013 - Oslo, Norway @ Bla
May 03, 2013 - Lund, Sweden @ Mejeriet
May 04, 2013 - Hamburg, Germany @ Uebel & Gefährlich
May 05, 2013 - Aachen, Germany @ Musikbunker Aachen
May 06, 2013 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Trix
May 07, 2013 - Paris, France @ Le Point Ephemere
May 08, 2013 - Diksmuide, Belgium @ 4AD
May 09, 2013 - London,UK @ Cargo
May 10, 2013 - Leeds, UK @ The Cockpit
May 11, 2013 - Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts Wah Wah Hut
May 12, 2013 - Manchester, UK @ The Deaf Institute
May 13, 2013 - Utrecht, Netherlands @ Tivoli
May 14, 2013 - Arnhem, Netherlands @ Willemeen
May 16, 2013 - Zürich, Switzerland @ Bogen F
May 17, 2013 - Milan, Italy @ Lo Fi Club
May 18, 2013 - St Petersburg, Russia @ Skif Festival
May 19, 2013 - Moscow, Russia @ 16 Tons Club

Pitchfork: Stream "Fight Like Gods" from Chelsea Wolfe & King Dude Split 7"

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Click above

The Work Magazine: CHELSEA WOLFE // SOUND CHECK

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:14:00 -0700

The Work Magazine is honored to present one of our favorite artists, Chelsea Wolfe, as the debut highlight in our “Sound Check” series. Here we capture an intimate portrait of this great talent as she prepares to take the stage at The First Unitarian Church in Los Angeles.

VIDEO DIRECTED & SHOT BY: KRISTIN COFER
EDITED BY: JON BROWN / STILL PHOTOS BY: EDDIE CHACON

Chelsea Wolfe’s European headline tour begins next week in Dublin. She will be combining her sets of acoustic and electric songs for these very special shows. All show dates below, including an appearance at Desert Daze Festival this weekend.

Apr 20, 2013 - Mecca, CA @ Desert Daze Festival

CHELSEA WOLFE EU 2013
Apr 24, 2013 - Dublin, Ireland @ The Sugar Club
Apr 25, 2013 - Belfast, N. Ireland @ Auntie Annie’s Porterhouse
Apr 27, 2013 - Praha, Czech Republic @ Lucerna Music Bar
Apr 28, 2013 - Berlin, Germany @ Kantine am Berghine
Apr 29, 2013 - København, Denmark @ Vega
Apr 30, 2013 - Stockholm, Sweden @ Debaser Medis
May 02, 2013 - Oslo, Norway @ Bla
May 03, 2013 - Lund, Sweden @ Mejeriet
May 04, 2013 - Hamburg, Germany @ Uebel & Gefährlich
May 05, 2013 - Aachen, Germany @ Autonomes Zentrum Aachen
May 06, 2013 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Trix
May 07, 2013 - Paris, France @ Le Point Ephemere
May 08, 2013 - Diksmuide, Belgium @ 4AD
May 09, 2013 - London,UK @ Cargo
May 10, 2013 - Leeds, UK @ The Cockpit
May 11, 2013 - Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts Wah Wah Hut
May 12, 2013 - Manchester, UK @ The Deaf Institute
May 13, 2013 - Utrecht, Netherlands @ Tivoli
May 14, 2013 - Arnhem, Netherlands @ Willemeen
May 16, 2013 - Zürich, Switzerland @ Bogen F
May 17, 2013 - Milan, Italy @ Lo Fi Club
May 18, 2013 - St Petersburg, Russia @ Skif Festival
May 19, 2013 - Moscow, Russia @ 16 Tons Club

Jun 13, 2013 - Brooklyn, NY@ Warsaw - Northside Music Fest w/ Swans

Chelsea Wolfe's interview with Ireland's Golden Plec

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 17:01:10 -0700

“Sargent House takes great care of their bands and is really supportive of art so I feel lucky to be a part of it.”

About to embark on a European Tour, with two dates in Ireland, Chelsea Wolfe is not the kind of sound one expects to associate with a label like Sargent House. Playing host to Irish acts like Adebisi Shank and And So I Watch You From Afar, among other considerably heavier sounding international artists.

Wolfe’s latest offering, the nine-song “Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs” is her clearest emergence from the veil and shadows that obscured her earlier work. As the album’s subtitle promises, it’s stark, but also in tune with her gothic sound; she’s accompanied by viola, violin, piano and analog synths. Her voice still conjures warped mirrors and molten candle wax, even when resounding in a room alone.

Describing it herself, Wolfe looks upon her own sound as bipolar or as having multiple personalities. “I don’t like to stick to one genre and I like to experiment. I’m interested in contrasting reality and something more arcane… Death is something that haunts me, as a character and concept, so the subject makes its way into a lot of my music.”

“Unknown Rooms” is a far cry from what we can expect from Chelsea Wolfe in the coming year when Wolfe will deliver her fourth album, which will expand upon the acoustic record’s themes. The new full-length will mark a significant change as Wolfe and Chisholm (who makes glitched goth-soul as Revelator) bring more electronic elements into the fold

“It was a way for us to bring together a lot of unreleased acoustic songs and while we did that I ended up writing new acoustic songs so they all live together on that album.”

Shifting herself from Northern California down to LA hasn’t changed her outlook on music though, influences aren’t based on location for Wolfe, but life experiences. “Living in LA has allowed me more time and space and energy to work on my music, but my influences come from the same place as when I lived in Northern California. Life, death, love, nature, cinema, books.”

Visually Chelsea Wolfe is known for her artwork and consistently updated website where her image considerably changes. “I work with a photographer (an old friend) named Kristin Cofer a lot (photo above by her). We’ve worked together for so many years that now we’re just comfortable experimenting and trying out ideas with photos and visuals.”

Whether she brings these visuals across in her live set is yet to be seen but the photos she associates with her music tell a story as much as her lyricism. A concept found on the cover of her acoustic album, a narrative found throughout her career. “For the ‘Unknown Rooms’ cover we rented a room at an old sort of abandoned hotel in the bay area of California that used to be a brothel. Each room is named after a different woman who used to live and work there and it feels very full (sic) of energy and stories.
Chelsea Wolfe plays the Sugar Club on April 24^th as part of her European Tour.

SEE ALL CHELSEA WOLFE TOUR DATES HERE

Chelsea Wolfe visits Daytrotter for her second Session with them

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 09:56:14 -0700

Click above to go to Chelsea Wolfe’s most recent Daytrotter

Click here for the Previous Chelsea Wolfe Daytrotter Session

The Quietus Interview with Chelsea Wolfe

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:43:00 -0700

The photographs available of American singer/songwriter Chelsea Wolfe are hugely varied, but all seem to obscure her in some way. They’re akin to peering through a window into an unlit room, her pale face inconspicuous behind mourning veils, half-hidden beneath snakelike tendrils of black hair, or just blurry portraits of an arcane figure. Her sound is equally as nebulous and difficult to define. It’s folk, but with the pathos and epodic slant of a troubled soul. It would seem that Wolfe dwells rather a lot on death.

Following her debut album The Grime & The Glow and 2011 follow-up Apokalypsis, a particularly excellent performance at Roadburn festival gathered her fans from across various styles of metal. Black metal in particular feels like an obvious reference point, though admittedly that’s more to do with its misty and chilly atmospheres than its walls of caustic distorton. Wolfe’s supernatural songs are redolent of isolated pine forests, half-light percolating through tree canopies, and the malodor of rotten petiole. They suggest that death is just as lonely as we feared - yet their ghostly traces hint towards the way that our selves endure through the memories of others around us.

To coincide with the release of her Latitudes session Prayer For The Unborn, the Quietus spoke with Wolfe about haunted keyboards, photography and yes, mortality.

Could you tell me about the concept of your recent Latitudes recording?

Chelsea Wolfe: I had this character of a housemate for a while who would camp out in the living room playing records for days. Nothing usually caught my ear, but one day I was walking through and heard Rudimentary Peni and it stopped me in my tracks - I listened and was so drawn to the energy behind that voice. The roommate told me about the band as they were one of his favorites - even his cat was named Blinky, after Nick Blinko. I couldn’t find a lot of their music online but I found lyrics and read all of them. I was haunted by Rudimentary Peni for days, weeks, until I finally was possessed fully one night and sat down to record five sort of covers of their songs, just based on the lyrics. They’re interpretations really, more than covers, since they don’t sound like the original songs and I hadn’t heard all of the songs I covered at the time.

I put those recordings on the internet for a while, and then when my UK/Europe tour was booked last spring, Southern Recordings in London asked if I wanted to come and do a session for a Latitudes release. I decided to re-work the Peni covers with my band and we recorded them with Harvey Birrell at Southern. I didn’t realise until that day that Harvey had actually recorded many of Rudimentary Peni’s albums! Strange fate. We had a really great time making this album - one of my favorite projects so far.

I really feel like your music works as a soundtrack to photograph by people like Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus - there seems to be something undefinable and ‘other’ about your sound. Do you have any visual representations you try to evoke with your music?

CW: Thank you - that’s a high compliment in my eyes. I have always adored the work of artists like Nan Goldin, who can take ordinary sadness and turn it into lasting beauty. I try to approach music as a slow-motion painting… something lush and cinematic, but grounded. I admire Werner Herzog and Lars von Trier for this quality to their films. Film and photography and painting and literature are the things I find most inspiring for my songs.

Your sound seems to be transiently slipping through genres, ghost-like and intangible - doom, drone, black metal, gothic, folk and dark ambient could all legitimately be used to describe it. It’s a prosaic question, but is it important to you that people interpret your music in a certain way?

CW: I’ve come to a point where I’m comfortable with and happy to have people interpret my music in their own way. I appreciate it when folks understand my music and relate to it and find it useful or helpful in their own realm. It’s an honour. I think a song can mean a million different things depending on the listener’s personal life experience. I do have a hard time sticking to one genre, and honestly I prefer it that way. I’d rather be free to experiment and make the kind of art I want to make than be easy to define.

Your personal aesthetic and artwork are incredibly expressive, specific and seem relevant to your work. Where do you derive your inspiration for these visual aspects?

CW: Again, it’s a lot of experimentation and following an idea. In my life I’ve ended up with some good friends who are also great photographers so I’ve been lucky to play around with them and see what works and what we can come up with. I get inspiration from designers, from films, from nature. For my live show I typically keep things minimal. I want it to be more about the energy of the music and the visuals in the person’s mind when they close their eyes.

Do you believe in the supernatural? Have you ever seen a ghost?

CW: I’ve only had one encounter with a “ghost” or spirit.. When I was a kid I had this keyboard piano that you could record songs into. It had spaces for three songs. On the first space I had recorded a simple piano pattern. I have never been very good at piano, nobody in my life was, it was just a simple repeated four-note pattern. On the second space I recorded a beat and some ocean sounds or something funny. The third space was open for a long time until I finally came home from school one day with an idea. I checked that third space to make sure I hadn’t forgotten about something I had recorded. I was surprised to hear the four-note pattern from the first track playing slowly, then dropping into a dark and beautiful piece based on those four notes, finally returning back to my pattern. It was far too lovely to be a glitch. I recorded it into my handheld recorder and eventually converted it into an mp3 so I still have it. Appropriately, at the time of this occurrence my backyard was basically a graveyard. We had a small yard which looked into the largest cemetery in my town. Overhearing funerals was a daily occurrence.

Your lyrics are arcane, insightful and ultimately very personal. What informs them?

CW: Since I was a kid, I knew that I understood sadness in a certain way, and that I could interpret that into words and songs. I was always drawn to brutal honesty in music, to stark reality and yet also beautiful, lush, idealism and even mysticism. Seeking out the truth and being very honest about it I suppose brings my music to a very personal place, but often my lyrics have nothing to do with my own life, they’re more about creating a world or telling a story.

You sometimes wear a mourning veil onstage or your face is obscured by your hair! Is there a certain element of exposure to playing live that you feel uncomfortable with?

CW: I haven’t worn the veil for a couple years now, but yes, there is definitely an aspect of live performance that I’m not comfortable with. I sometimes wish there were no cameras at concerts. I wish people could just be there with me without trying to capture it for others to see. When I see a camera pointed at my during a show I get distracted, so yeah, I usually try to make eye contact with people who are listening or cover my face with my hair so I can keep focused on the song.

The veil started out as an experiment in visuals; expressing a sense of mourning or funeral marches. But then I realised it really helped me separate myself from the fact that I was performing. It was a very child-like thing to do I suppose, like covering my face would make it so nobody could see me! But while I’ve always felt comfortable and natural as a singer and songwriter and person who records music, live performance is a different challenge. The reason it took me so many years to become a serious musician is because for a long I didn’t believe I could be someone who could be a performer, someone people looked to and listened to in that kind of setting. It’s still strange, but I accept it as part of my job and an extension of the recordings, so I do my best to lose myself in the songs and give all of myself to the audience.

Why do you push your voice through distortion on your recordings?

CW: I like the idea of a voice being pushed through machines and electricity. I’ve always loved white noise, and my favorite pedal to sing through is this really fucked up old digital reverb that has these long, drawn-out moments of unexplainable noise. It feels like a haunting. I sometimes experiment with clean vocals and also enjoy that feeling of in-the-same-room intimacy, but I often think of the voice as another instrument and so run it through pedals and loops, just like I would with an electric guitar.

A personal question - ‘Halfsleeper’ is one of my all time favourite songs, it makes me cry, and it also frightens me. When I’m by myself sometimes I have to skip it, it calls up a feeling like when I was small and the wind in the trees used to scare me. What’s it about?

CW: Death is a subject that many of my songs explore, probably because I haven’t experienced it much myself and so I became obsessed with it. I was introduced to Death as a character in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and reading Sylvia Plath poems. The line “death is the dress she wears” is a line that always stood out to me. ‘Halfsleeper’ is about dying in a car accident with a loved one. I wrote it after seeing some particularly brutal and colorful roadkill by the freeway on a bright day. So much of our lives consists of driving and sleeping. When you die everything petty becomes unimportant, and love is what remains.

Record Store Day Release: Chelsea Wolfe & King Dude 7"

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 14:29:23 -0700

We are happy to announce that Sargent House is releasing the Chelsea Wolfe / King Dude Split 7” as our special Record Store Day release on April 20, 2013. Support your local shop!

Check out CW & KD singing together from their tour this past January below.

Chelsea Wolfe European & Russian Headline tour dates announced

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:53:00 -0700

Chelsea Wolfe’s European headline tour is now announced in full. She will be combining her sets of acoustic and electric songs for these very special shows, she will also be playing Russia and Ireland for the first time. Before leaving California she will play at this year’s Desert Daze Festival out in Mecca, CA on April 20th. Upon her return to the States she will be flying in to New York for a special show with Swans for the Northside Music Festival on June 13th.

SEE ALL SHOW DETAILS AND UPDATES HERE.

Apr 20, 2013 - Mecca, CA @ Desert Daze Festival

CHELSEA WOLFE EU 2013
Apr 24, 2013 - Dublin, Ireland @ The Sugar Club
Apr 25, 2013 - Belfast, N. Ireland @ Auntie Annie’s Porterhouse
Apr 27, 2013 - Praha, Czech Republic @ Lucerna Music Bar
Apr 28, 2013 - Berlin, Germany @ Kantine am Berghine
Apr 29, 2013 - København, Denmark @ Vega
Apr 30, 2013 - Stockholm, Sweden @ Debaser Medis
May 02, 2013 - Oslo, Norway @ Bla
May 03, 2013 - Lund, Sweden @ Mejeriet
May 04, 2013 - Hamburg, Germany @ Uebel & Gefährlich
May 05, 2013 - Aachen, Germany @ Autonomes Zentrum
May 06, 2013 - Antwerp, Belgium @ Trix
May 07, 2013 - Paris, France @ Le Point Ephemere
May 08, 2013 - Diksmuide, Belgium @ 4AD
May 09, 2013 - London,UK @ Cargo
May 10, 2013 - Leeds, UK @ The Cockpit
May 11, 2013 - Glasgow, UK @ King Tuts Wah Wah Hut
May 12, 2013 - Manchester, UK @ The Deaf Institute
May 13, 2013 - Utrecht, Netherlands @ Tivoli
May 14, 2013 - Arnhem, Netherlands @ Willemeen
May 16, 2013 - Zürich, Switzerland @ Bogen F
May 17, 2013 - Milan, Italy @ Lo Fi Club
May 18, 2013 - St Petersburg, Russia @ Skif Festival
May 19, 2013 - Moscow, Russia @ 16 Tons Club

Jun 13, 2013 - Brooklyn, NY@ Warsaw - Northside Music Festival w/ Swans

NYLON: Live session with Chelsea Wolfe from Black Gold

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 11:17:52 -0800

Here at NYLON TV, we love Chelsea Wolfe. Not only have we been listening to Unknown Rooms since it came out, we also admire her fashion abilities - this girl can pull of anything. (Including that amazing nose pincher she’s wearing in our video…) So, when she was in town to play her sold-out show at Music Hall of Williamsburg, we were on it. Come with us inside Black Gold, our favorite record store in Brooklyn, for a total shiver-inducing performance of Appalachia. Check out Black Gold here

Featured Music: Chelsea Wolfe - ‘Appalachia’ Also, check out the band crush we did with her a bit ago here.

CVLT Nation: Live Video from Toronto

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:05:21 -0800

What you have here below is 5:15 of visual & sonic ear candy. It’s Chelsea Wolfe & King Dude performing together in Toronto. On the real, I had to watch this footage on repeat because it’s that fucking good! The way this video is shot adds even more mood to these already very moody compositions. After the jump, check out this cryptic noir performance by Chelsea Wolfe & King Dude, plus a couple of surprises!

See More at CVLT Nation

Photo above by Daniel Ahrendt

LA CANVAS: A Conversation with Chelsea Wolfe / Video

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 12:05:01 -0800

Chelsea Wolfe visits the LA CANVAS Clubhouse to talk about her musical background, how dreams inspired her acoustic record, and the importance of looking back to your ancestors.

WORK Magazine Los Angeles Show Review & Photos

Sat, 16 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

I had the pleasure of seeing Chelsea Wolfe last Friday night at the first Unitarian Church. Chelsea appeared on the stage like a ghost, an ethereal beauty with long dark hair & gentle movements. The church had an intense red glow to it & candles burned on what felt like every surface of the stage. No one cheered or spoke. It was completely silent—& then she started to play.

It felt like everyone held their breathe while she played & exploded into claps after each song, gasping for their next breath. Her shyness between songs made it feel like you were in a room with a friend, someone showing you a secret.

When her set was complete, the crowd became alive, begging her for more. She returned to the stage, dark hair covering her eyes but a huge smile showing. She requested they turn down the lights—& it was perfect again as she closed the night with her beautiful & hauntingly dark mystical folk. Pick up her new acoustic album immediately.

— Jenelle Campbell

Cultist: Goes to Church with Chelsea Wolfe - Interview & Photos

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 09:52:00 -0800

Not to be all LA and vain and superficial, but Chelsea Wolfe‘s complexion is like a cold glass of whole milk. And her voice — it sounds like how it feels to gulp down said beverage, or maybe a White Russian, on a sweltering summer day, inducing the kind of savage, glugging sounds that offend some types of people (not our kind of people), sitting cross-legged and bra-less on an abandoned rooftop in Detroit, wearing nothing but a virginal vintage slip dress, partially-laced combat boots, chipped red nail polish, and an armload of clinking bracelets stacked almost to the elbow. (I guess, although I’ve never been to Detroit.)

Standing in a fluorescent-lit corridor of the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, it’s hard not to stare at Chelsea. She is tall and pale and piercing, her jet black hair, feathery fur coat and generously-inked eyeliner are dark and elegant like a crow’s plumes; her shadowy silhouette broken only by a plastic cup containing a Barbie-pink cocktail that she holds in skull-ringed hands. Cramped between the main stage and “backstage,” which is more like a modest sitting area with nothing pretty to look at (present company excepted) and more often frequented by a totally different kind of worshipper, Chelsea and I talk death, John Cusack, Fashion Week, and superstition. She is on tour with her latest album Unknown Rooms: A Collection Of Acoustic Songs, and with moody vocals that instinctively oscillate between frozen and hearth-like, turning us to ice and then soothing our goosebumps, it is fair to say that on a rainy Friday evening in an unassuming Church in a no-good block of Los Angeles, Chelsea Wolfe is pretty much perfect. Even without the plastic bottle of vodka in my purse.

Since I’m awkward, I’m going to start out this interview with a story that makes me sound like a stalker. Today was rainy and gloomy and I was under blankets listening to Unknown Rooms and thinking about how when I hear your music I picture you wearing a flowing dress and walking into the water, and how much that visual reminds of the movie The Hours. Then, I saw one of your songs is called “Virginia Woolf Underwater” and I was really tripped out. What’s that’s about?

I’ve used that image of me walking into the water two times now. One of my earlier influences as a girl was literature. Writers, poets, Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath. I definitely related to them in their familiar darkness, and way of understanding the world. I think that image is something that has been burned into my mind. Both directors I’ve worked with have caught onto that. I didn’t suggest it, they came up with it. It’s interesting that you picked up on that, too.

Sort of a morbid fascination?

I definitely have a sort of obsession, well maybe not as much of an obsession as an infatuation, with death. One of the first films I was really taken aback by and drawn to is the The Seventh Seal. The character of death is so distinct and specific, and I was always really attracted to, and inspired by, that. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate to never experience the death of anyone close to me. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve still never experienced it. I guess I’ve become infatuated with it, the experience of what it would be like to lose someone, and what it would be like to die, and just dealing with all of that. That’s probably why a lot of my songs deal with death, because I’ve never dealt with it and I’m still trying to understand it.

I get that. Trying to figure out what it all means. Are you a superstitious person? Do you believe in signs?

I find myself being superstitious, and then the reasonable side of me will kick in and try and stomp that out. I definitely have an inclination toward being superstitious, but I try not to be. I try to look at things in a reasonable and truthful way.

Is there anything special or symbolic for you about performing in a church? I feel like it’s the perfect venue for you.

Well, honestly, it was always a dream to play in unconventional spaces. I always wanted to do a tour of churches and funeral homes. This tour happened to book a lot of old churches, which I was really happy with. Especially the Unitarian church, because it’s not as religious, and there isn’t a big cross behind me, and there’s not as many religious connotations. It’s more about a unique, beautiful space to play in, and the acoustics are really nice. I’m really interested in playing in any sort of unique and interesting space. Traditional venues are nice sometimes, but I really like to change things up with spaces like this.

Are you religious?

No. I consider myself a spiritual person, in the sense that I want to recognize that there’s a spiritual realm and that there’s something else going on. It’s not specific. There’s not any particular religion that I grew up with.

Do you ever feel limited creatively? Are you interested in pursuing other creative outlets?

I don’t feel limited, because I feel like anyone can try any art form if they want. I’m not very talented as far as painting and drawing, and I really admire people who are. I don’t feel held back by that, though. I love photography and video, it’s definitely something I explore in my free time. I don’t think I’m great at it, but it’s fun for me to do something that’s more visual and more hands on in that way. Generally, when I write music, I don’t think about it being for this album or that album, I just write in a really instinctual, natural way. Once the song is finished, it might fit in a certain album, or it might not. I have a lot of songs that just sit there forever on my recorder or my computer or wherever it was recorded.

What kind of visuals and images are you drawn to?

I really love stuff that’s raw. I’ve always loved Nan Goldin’s style of photography. It’s so real. Not always the most perfect or beautiful image, but you can find so much beauty it in if you think about it and look more closely. I love a lot of different directors for different reasons. Ingmar Bergman, for the stark feel of it. And John Waters is so fun, flamboyant, and colorful. I’m interested in a wide range of visuals, literature and art. I really just experiment. Maybe one day I’ll try and do something serious with it.

Your aesthetic is sort of synonymous with you as an artist and a musician. Each image I see of you is really powerful. Is that important to you, the visual image that you portray?

Yea. It hasn’t always been very purposeful, and it’s still usually not. I don’t go into a photoshoot thinking about it. I haven’t done many videos, so I don’t think about that, but usually with photos I’m trying to tell a story. I’m not thinking about trying to match an image up with my music, I’m really just experimenting.

I happen to have a lot of really good friends who are great photographers, so it’s been really fun to experiment with them, and sometimes it doesn’t work and sometimes it turns out looking really powerful. It’s been years of experimenting and having fun with photographer friends.

Any dream collaborations?

Oh man. So many. I’d love to do soundtracks with Werner Herzog, his soundtracks are always amazing. I’d also love to do something with someone who is probably harder to reach, like Vincent Gallo. The possibilities are endless. I don’t limit myself in any capacity and I’m always very open to whatever comes my way.

Any surprising or unexpected career twists living in LA, the land of the celebrity?

Not in any celebrity sense. It’s definitely been good for me to live here, I’ve been here for about two years.

Ugh. I didn’t really mean to say celebrity, that kind of just slipped out. Oh god, I just sounded like one of those sleazy journalists asking if you’ve fucked any famous people. But have you fucked any famous people?

I know what you meant though, I was trying to think of something for you. Well, someone said that John Cusack was coming tonight, so that’s kind of rad and funny. In reality though, moving to LA has been really good for me because people like to get things done here. That’s my mindset as well. I like to work, I like to work fast, I like to get things done, and record a lot of things, and do a lot of projects at once. I’ve found a lot of people here are in the same mind frame, that’s probably why since I’ve moved here I’ve been doing more touring and visual art. I’ve come across a lot of great people who feel that way and have similar interests.

I think that’s interesting that you feel that way, because I’m born and raised in LA and I feel kind of opposite.

I guess I’ve been kind of lucky with my record label Sargent House. I was really fortunate to start working with them about a year after I moved out here. They’re all about getting shit done and moving forward, and they’re really down to earth. My manager Cathy Pellow has been a dream to work with. My experience here has been great so far.

Do you remember the moment in your career when you all of the sudden realized that people were starting to take notice?

Maybe just when I started touring more. Before, I didn’t really have the confidence or the means to go on tour for long periods of time. Now that I’ve been doing that consistently, I’ve noticed that I’m better able to connect with people. When you see someone perform live you can connect with them and talk to them. It’s been a gradual thing, playing more and going to more cities.

Is it bizarre to have a dark and moody and brooding and gothy stage persona, and then to be this sweet, soft-spoken, non-intimating person in real life?

I guess I don’t personally feel like I come across as cold. Or maybe I do, and I just don’t really notice. I definitely am a moody person, so that’s true to life. Sometimes it’s frustrating, because I can go up and down so fast. But, generally, I really like people and appreciate when they come to shows, and want to talk to anyone who wants to talk to me.

What’s the deal with that piece of jewelry? (referring to piece on nose)

It’s just this piece from Margiela that I fell in love with and hunted down in the store. It’s like the only thing I’ve spent money on in the last few years. I hardly ever spend money, but I fell in love with this thing and had to have it. It’s just so cool.

You’re obviously into fashion. Are you bummed out that you’re not at Fashion Week?

I don’t think I would do very well there. I would go play a show, if I was offered. I was actually invited to play a show, but it was tonight. I don’t do well with crowds when I don’t have a specific purpose. I don’t think I’d do well just wandering around, I’m not very good at just hanging out. I like to be working and doing something creative. I definitely love clothes. I’m not always hip to exactly what’s in fashion, but I love clothes and silhouettes and discovering different designers that I really love. I think there’s so much good shit out there right now, from Etsy to what’s on the runway right now.

Interview by Jane
all photos by Rick Rodney