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Chelsea Wolfe has just announced headlining EU/UK 2020 acoustic tour dates. The American Darkness acoustic tour starts soon. Visit chelseawolfe.net for tickets and full tour itinerary. (EU/UK tickets on sale Oct 9th at 11 AM CEST)
For Current Mood #027, Chelsea Wolfe shares a playlist of songs that influenced her latest record.
In our Current Mood series, we ask some of our favourite artists to curate a playlist according to a specific theme or mood of their choice. For Current Mood #027, Chelsea Wolfe shares songs that influenced her latest record Birth of Violence. Listen to past Current Mood playlists here.
Stalwart avant-garde musician Chelsea Wolfe has spent a career making music that’s as fascinating as it is uncategorisable. Her music touches everything from metal to folk, and there’s something consistently, undefinably powerful about her live performances. Her latest record, Birth Of Violence, released earlier this year, pushes Wolfe’s art even further: it’s a return to pure folk that, somehow, adds a more abstract, cosmic layer to her music.
Befitting an artist with such wide-ranging influences and styles, Wolfe’s FADER CURRENT MOOD playlist touches everything from Nico and Nick Cave to David Bowie and Joni Mitchell. “This is a group of favorite songs that have kept me sane on the road,” Wolfe tells The FADER via email, “And that helped me drop into the inspiration for the writing and production of Birth of Violence.” Listen to Chelsea Wolfe’s CURRENT MOOD playlist above, and read our interview with her about Birth of Violence here.
For the release of her new video collaboration, we talk environmentalism, Witchcraft and love of giant sequoia trees with American singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe.
Elisabeth Krohn: What does the word Witch mean to you?
Chelsea Wolfe: On my personal journey, I’ve been asked in one way or another if I am a Witch since the beginning of my career as a musician. At first I would brush it off, not feeling very connected to this word. But as I got older I realized that many of the rituals and habits that I was already doing actually aligned with Witchcraft and it slowly starting coming back to me, like a memory clouded over that I could finally remember. I’d been reading tarot for myself for many years after a friend gifted me a deck in my early twenties and as a child I spent summers at my grandmother’s house who practiced Reiki, aromatherapy and herbal healing on me. Looking back I see that those years opened me up to a connection with the spiritual realm that wasn’t always nurtured over the years, but did remain in me to help guide my intuition. My friends knew I was a Witch before I even did! I’ve been gifted so many tools over the years by people close to me that ended up furthering my “education” without me really realizing it: a pendulum, tarot decks, herbs and crystals and books on spirituality and Witchcraft. It’s pretty cool to look back on. For me, in essence, to be a Witch is to live in instinct, intuition and intention, following the cycles and seasons of nature in order to raise energy, create and connect with the self and our ancestors!
EK: What prompted you to write the this poem now? How do you relate to its themes personally?
CW: I wrote the poem as something to speak underneath the song “Erde” on this album. It’s there, hidden beneath the music. “Erde” is the root word for “Earth,” meaning all-dirt. Over my career I’ve written certain songs as love letters to nature and this is one of them. It’s a sort of conversation with Mother Earth, talking about all the strange things happening on her soil, all our strange ways that parallel her ancient wisdom. When my dear friend Virginie Khateeb, who filmed this video, reached out about wanting to collaborate on something, this poem came to mind because she’s really wonderful at capturing natural environments in her photo work. Virginie and I have known each other for almost fifteen years now, connecting when we can in different cities, and it’s always a blessing to be around her and to work with her. So, last December, a couple hours before I was playing the SSE Arena at Wembley in London opening for A Perfect Circle, we met up. I was road-weary as always, but very happy to see her face. Armed with her Super 8 camera, we wandered around the area to find as many bits of nature hidden in the high-traffic area of the city as possible, dodging cars and shielding the camera from the rain under our coats. Virginie had a vision in mind: she would capture as much of me as possible in that short time, then she’d set out on her own to capture visions of natural spots outside of the city — raw and open, as she does so well. The video would be set to a poem I’d written after an annual winter visit to the Berkeley Botanical Gardens as a sort of secret message to the new songs I was working on – which would soon become Birth of Violence. As I was wandering the Berkeley gardens on this particular visit, the names of poisonous and healing plants lingered on my tongue and I started repeating them like in some kind of trance or as an incantation. I thought about Mother Earth giving us these beautiful plants to be used in magick and it sparked a new curiosity for me into these herbs and flowers. I’ve never had a green thumb but really admire those green Witches who do!
EK: Are Witchcraft and environmentalism connected concepts for you?
CW: Witchcraft opens your eyes to nature and the environment in a new way, and, at least for me, I feel so nurtured by plants and animals and trees that I want to send that love and nurture right back. You start to care more where your food and herbs and crystals come from — were they grown and harvested in a sustainable way? I’m not saying I’m perfect by any means — I have a lot to learn, but I do think that Witchcraft and environmentalism are deeply connected and I see that more and more of us are beginning to educate ourselves on how to do our part and put in more effort, large or small.
EK: In your poem you write “I am the Mother of the Forest” — how do you relate to the term Mother Earth and the maternal aspect of nature?
CW: Mother of the Forest is the name of a tree I’ve visited since I was a child. She lives in a giant sequoia grove in Northern California. After she was “discovered” in the gold rush era, some men stripped her of her bark and sent the pieces around the world to be reassembled as an exhibition. The tree died but still stands in the grove. It’s shocking and sobering after wandering around these ancient, thriving, green trees to then encounter her, stripped bare and covered in saw marks. I’ve seen other visitors experience this same sort of moment of silence for the tree, whether they’re realizing it or not. The first time I experienced The Mother of the Forest as a grown woman, I of course instantly understood the connection between the way this tree was treated and the way women have been treated over time: no autonomy over their own bodies — seen as property, or something to show off and then thrown away when it no longer serves. This tree is a personal deity in a way, and I always imagine her in her power, watching over the forest and rivers and flowers around her. I feel really connected to giant sequoias. I actually came upon one while on a walk in the woods not far from my house. It’s younger and smaller, but still has that ancient energy to it. This tree felt really in synch with my path: having such close access to one of these trees to come commune with or visit when I was feeling lost. One day I hiked down to it after a particularly intense wind-storm and noticed that it had lost one of its large lower branches. I was stunned — how could this powerful tree break? They survive thousands of years through fires and storms of all kinds! But then I understood: this just happened to be the day after I’d had a biopsy and was awaiting the phone call to tell me whether I was ok or whether I’d need surgery to have a part of me cut out. Seeing this tree with the missing limb and knowing that it would keep growing despite this break was such a powerful parallel and lesson for me.
Video by Virginie Khateeb featuring words by Chelsea Wolfe. Edited by Clementine Bartaud and music by Ben Chisholm, created on a Prophet-600.
EK: In what ways do you think we can work to create more actual change and less apathy around issues like climate change?
CW: Of course our vote counts a lot. When we support a candidate who cares and has actual proactive plans around issues like climate change, that means a lot more than being apathetic during an election. We need large shifts on a governmental level at this point. I’m no saint, I hop on tour buses and planes a few times a year which are gas monsters, but I do think that educating ourselves on how we can make small changes to help the environment around us, whether it’s just using less single-use plastics and putting those things into action as much as we can is meaningful, while also inspiring an effort to live a mindful life.
EK: Do you have any magical natural experiences you’d like to share with us?
CW: The simple things do it for me. Finally being home for a length of time this year to witness the seasons change and celebrate the Sabbats has been really healing. I’ve been in constant motion and on tour for a long time, typically I’ll only be home just long enough to shovel the snow in the driveway so I can get to the airport for the next tour or festival and then the next time I’m around, the flowers have already bloomed and gone. Before this year I haven’t had much time to settle in and appreciate the cycles and to watch things grow and pass. The winter and spring were truly magickal, but I’ve always struggled with summer. I’ve had the Sun card on my altar since Litha as a reminder to try to appreciate this season which has always felt so dry and dull for me. But of course it makes the relief of Autumn so much sweeter. Waking up to grey mornings brings me such a sense of calm.
Chelsea’s new album Birth of Violence is out now on Sargent House and she is currently on tour in North America.
The doom-folk mage reveals why she took an acoustic turn for new album Birth Of Violence – without ditching the pedals
“I’m always exploring contrasts,” says Chelsea Wolfe, talking to Guitar World about new album Birth Of Violence.
Her sixth full-length marks a departure from all the crackling electric guitar distortion of its predecessor, instead pursuing the warmer realms of atmospheric acoustics, building simple folk ideas into a magnificent oceanic reverie. And yet it still feels every bit as dark and unsettling as the music she’s become famous for…
“There’s a constant dichotomy within me,” muses Chelsea, when asked how she balances the aforementioned contrasts.
Full interview feature by Amit Sharma HERE
Burnout is real. Chelsea Wolfe intimates as much when we take a Skype video call to chat about her sixth album, Birth of Violence, out now on Sargent House. Wolfe says that after eight years of prolific album releases and nonstop touring, she hit a wall.
Having lived in Los Angeles for a long time, Wolfe says she moved into a house in bucolic Northern California three years ago, and “basically dropped my stuff off and went back on tour.”
Forever a musical transformer, with eclectic roots and references in folk, metal, noise, electronica, and vocal R&B, Wolfe’s last album, 2017’s Hiss Spun, was her loudest, heaviest work yet.
Wolfe says that album kickstarted a more internal shift, where she felt called to be more personal in her lyrics than ever, best evidenced in tracks like “The Culling” and “16 Psyche.” After touring Hiss Spun worldwide, Wolfe decamped to her Northern California home and hunkered down.
Read the full interview by Michael Love Michael HERE
Chelsea Wolfe‘s 7th studio album, ‘Birth of Violence’, is out now worldwide. Available for stream / download / purchase HERE.
Her headlining acoustic tour starts in October with support from Ioanna Gika on all dates. Tickets: chelseawolfe.net
OCT 18 San Diego, CA @ Observatory North Park
OCT 19 Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom
OCT 21 Salt Lake City, UT @ Metro Music Hall
OCT 22 Estes Park, CO @ Stanley Hotel
OCT 24 Chicago, IL @ Metro
OCT 25 Detroit, MI @ Senate Theater
OCT 26 Toronto, ONT @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
OCT 27 Montreal, QC @ Le National
OCT 29 Boston, MA @ Royale
OCT 31 Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
NOV 01 New York, NY @ Brooklyn Steel
NOV 03 Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
NOV 04 Charlotte, NC @ McGlohon Theater
NOV 05 Atlanta, GA @ Terminal West
NOV 06 Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
NOV 08 Dallas, TX @ Texas Theatre
NOV 09 Austin, TX @ Levitation / early show (JUST ADDED)
NOV 09 Austin, TX @ Levitation (SOLD OUT)
NOV 10 Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall
NOV 12 Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
NOV 13 Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
NOV 15 Los Angeles, CA @ The Palace Theatre
NOV 16 San Francisco, CA @ Regency Ballroom
NOV 18 Portland, OR @ Wonder Ballroom
NOV 20 Seattle, WA @ The Showbox
NOV 21 Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
(Interview via Flood Magazine)
In an Era of American Darkness, Chelsea Wolfe Embraces Her Power
“Sometimes, just the thought of being on stage is more stressful than actually doing it,” singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe tells me. “Once I’m in the groove of a tour, it becomes a really fun thing. It’s like an experiment every night to see how it’s going to go, how the energy of the room is going to be.”
It’s half past noon in early August, and Wolfe has just finished her morning workout. “I don’t get up super early, so I’m still in morning zone right now—very musician of me,” she laughs.
The thirty-five-year-old Sacramento native is relaxed as she speaks from her home in the mountains of Northern California, where she’s preparing for a cross-country trek in support of her sixth studio effort, Birth of Violence. “I really tried my best, on this tour, to find old theaters, or places that had character, since it’s an acoustic set,” she says. “With a full band, we could play in any old bar, but as much as I could, I tried to find an interesting setting, or a place with really good acoustics.”
One venue which definitely strikes the right note is Colorado’s Stanley Hotel, famous for serving as the exterior of the nefarious Overlook in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. While the singer-songwriter’s latest work doesn’t exactly conjure visions of corridors brimming with blood, it’s a gorgeous, shadowy recording replete with stark songcraft that’s sure to sparkle in the sinister setting.
Full interview by John Coyle HERE
Chelsea Wolfe has added on an early show with ioanna gika at LEVITATION on Nov 9th due to popular demand. The late show is already sold out.
Nov 9 Chelsea & Ioanna Early show: https://bit.ly/2kuqwWL
Nov 9 Chelsea & Ioanna Late show: SOLD OUT
In advance of her new album, Birth of Violence, the uncategorizable artist talks about the new levels of depression that the past year has unlocked and premieres a new video for “Deranged for Rock & Roll.”
Chelsea Wolfe has spent her decade-long music career in the in-between. As a prolific tourer, she’s persistently been between cities; as a musician who’s as drawn to Aaliyah as she is to Sunn O))), she veers between the hard and soft. As a clairvoyant and spiritualist — someone who claims to be in contact with the ‘spiritual realm’ — she exists between the films of life and death. And most of all, Wolfe lies between waking and dreaming. Her seven albums to date have been imbued with a hypnagogic affection — as powerful as a dream which impresses itself onto your day. “Dreams of endless landscapes,” she sung on 2015’s Abyss, capturing her sound in words. From a young age, Wolfe suffered from night terrors. She had an extraordinary case of sleep paralysis, and her parents took her to a sleep research clinic to be experimented on — an experience that has seeped into her music and lyrics, the white walls of the clinic as she remembers them provide the backdrop to the artwork for her previous album, 2017’s Hiss Spun.
Wolfe’s new album Birth Of Violence — out September 13 via Sargent House — is an awakening. Her voice is more distinct and present than ever as she takes on the role of the troubadour, singing protrusively over a quietly strummed acoustic guitar while the sparse percussion thuds like footsteps from another room. It’s a distinctly folkier and pared-back approach that enables Wolfe’s words to be heard, rather than letting them liquify in the mix. Where melodies dictated Wolfe’s previous albums, here they’re only given a supporting role, as they’re bent to fit the weight of Wolfe’s words. It’s a deliberate turning point for the musician, as Birth of Violence provides a gentle rupture from a wildly careening, in-between self. It’s Wolfe’s attempt to reroot herself; to become something full and healthy.
We’re premiering the video for the album’s guitar screaking outlier, “Deranged for Rock & Roll” — Wolfe’s love song to the genre that’s been the center point of her life for the past decade. It’s a heavy intermission between the album’s title track — which features its most beautiful, stomach-dropping moment as Wolfe’s voice coos somewhere between a scream and a whistle — and “Be All Things,” a fingerpicked lullaby which pulls at the tension between wanting to dissolve into the universe and needing to stand on top of it. “I really had to learn to take better care of myself,” Wolfe tells me over the phone from her home in the forests of northern California.
full interview feature by Emma Madden HERE
Since her first album, 2010’s The Grime and the Glow, Californian singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe hasn’t slowed down. She has explored different sounds during her 10-year career, built on five studio albums and long tours between Europe and the U.S. In 2019, Wolfe returns to her solitary origins and the intimacy of her own voice and guitar with Birth of Violence, out via Sargent House on Sept. 13.
“I definitely feel like there’s some kind of breath of relief with this album,” Wolfe admits. “I was really pushing myself for a long time to keep going and keep going. I think that’s what you have to do in this industry, just keep staying on the road and keep playing shows. That’s how people find out about you, and that’s how you can make money, but there was something really nagging in me last year that I needed to take a break or I was going to burn out.”
“This album is meant to really feel like home,” she continues. “I think I’ve always been sneaking out to places that felt like home when I was on the road. I finally moved back home to Northern California a couple of years ago, but I haven’t really been able to spend much time in the house I moved into. So, making this record was a way to settle in and really get to know the house and get to know this area I’m living in in the mountains.”
full feature by Marika Zorzi HERE
