I became enchanted by Chelsea Wolfe’s dark music during my first listens to her albums. The diverse influences and expressions she employs in her music have impressed me greatly. Her songs are complex, haunting and strange. Here are some of my favourites of her performances.
California native Chelsea Wolfe has always embodied both light and dark. Yet though her music is a raw strain of electric folk tinted by black metal and deep blues, it never wallows in despair. Instead, it wraps itself like a thick blanket around the human experience, encouraging uplift, seeking triumph. Her voice is a haunting call, warm and lingering, and her lyrics acknowledge life’s obscure and melancholy moments in service to the unlikely truths and beauty they so often reveal. Her music exudes strength in the midst of adversity. It makes sense then that her influences run from Nick Cave and Selda Bagcan, to directors as varied as Ingmar Bergman and John Waters, with nods to the dramatic flair of Antony Hegarty, and even more so that she hails from the wilder, woodsy part of her state.
Chelsea Wolfe at SXSW from Largetail on Vimeo.