The Official Chelsea Wolfe Thread V. She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

[LithoJazzoSphere]

It's clear now she's heading towards a new album in the near future with the second single just coming out, so it's overdue time she gets her own thread here. 

Music video for the second single, "Whispers in the Echo Chamber"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0o2GraeMlo

Definitely leans somewhere inbetween the Pain Is Beauty electronics and ethereality and Abyss industrial/doom edge, certainly some NIN-ish elements. 

Audio for the first single, "Dusk"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-ABKqCuKU

Turns out there is an album title/release date now.  The new album will be entitled She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She and released on February 9th.

For those who've never heard her, or maybe only heard a song or two, here's a playlist for a quick sampling of the range of sounds she does.  I might amend it later since I just got the idea since noticing the single is out and having the idea for an official thread, but it'll do for the moment.  She's easily been the single most important artist for the directions my taste has taken in the past half a dozen years since I discovered her. 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Ll9peoFZAXW3yhHn7wrE8

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Music video for the newest single "Tunnel Lights". 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTm1aClf-fg

Now this sounds like a modernized version of Portishead covering NIN. 

[Sacul]

Need to listen to the first 2 singles but this last one sounds really promising.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

4th single "Everything Turns Blue".  There's no question at this point that this album is angling from the electronic side of her sound. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4KJRuADHQE

[Sacul]

Sounded nice, quite hyped for this one

[LithoJazzoSphere]

The album is out.  As I hoped, I actually like the non-singles even better than the singles.  Early AOTY candidate.  In retrospect, she's kind of compartmentalizing each album a bit now.  Pain Is Beauty and Abyss had more of a mix of styles, whereas Unknown Rooms was the most folky, Mistake In Parting the closest to alt rock, Hiss Spun is her most metal album, Birth of Violence her most country, and now this is the most fully electronic one. 

[nick_z]

Wow, first impression was great. Can't wait to give it more spins, but one song I had to listen to a second time already is Place in the Sun. Fantastic. Mesmerizing performance on that one...especially the section that starts with "Safe with the one...". Makes you wish it was longer!

[Sacul]

Didn't know it was out already, gonna have to give it a listen now .

EDIT: Yeah it's really good, I dug it a lot on my first listen.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

one song I had to listen to a second time already is Place in the Sun. Fantastic. Mesmerizing performance on that one...especially the section that starts with "Safe with the one...". Makes you wish it was longer!

That might have been my least favorite on the first play, but I'll have to pay more attention to it on relistens. 

[nick_z]

one song I had to listen to a second time already is Place in the Sun. Fantastic. Mesmerizing performance on that one...especially the section that starts with "Safe with the one...". Makes you wish it was longer!

That might have been my least favorite on the first play, but I'll have to pay more attention to it on relistens.

Well, there you have it     It's certainly a little more minimalistic than the rest, but something about that vocal melody really struck me

[LithoJazzoSphere]

To be fair, it's like the least tasty bite of a good Germanchökolätekäke, there's really no such thing. 

[nick_z]

You have a point 

[hefdaddy42]

So I just listened to this, and my first thought is that it's pretty incredible.

I liked everything about it.

Is the rest of her stuff in this vein at all? Or is this a major departure in any way?

[LithoJazzoSphere]

It's the most she's gone in that direction so far.  There are a decent number of tracks on Pain Is Beauty and Abyss that also hit on elements of the same sound.  But in general she has quite a range of stylistic diversity depending on the album and song.  I could see you potentially liking Birth of Violence, which hits more of her gothic country/folk side.  If you have time I'd give a listen to the playlist I put in the OP, which is eight songs which touch on different styles she's incorporated over the years. 

[LithoJazzoSphere]

BTW, while interest in her is likely to be at a relative peak with a new album just having dropped, I want to highlight a track from her actual first album, Mistake In Parting, which probably not even a lot of her fans have heard.  She's disowned that album, feeling it's too different from what she would go on to do later, but I think that's a mistake, as it has some really good music on it.  And while I love how she douses her voice in effects later on quite frequently, it's also nice to just hear it more normally as well.  This is my favorite track on the debut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auk6c8nRVhA

[hefdaddy42]

It's the most she's gone in that direction so far.  There are a decent number of tracks on Pain Is Beauty and Abyss that also hit on elements of the same sound.  But in general she has quite a range of stylistic diversity depending on the album and song.  I could see you potentially liking Birth of Violence, which hits more of her gothic country/folk side.  If you have time I'd give a listen to the playlist I put in the OP, which is eight songs which touch on different styles she's incorporated over the years.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Acoustic "live" version of "Dusk"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1t0fYl3-Kk

While one of my favorite things about a lot of her work is all the layers and production details, it's also great to see how she can also strip one of the songs down to the bare minimum, and make a single guitar, single vocal performance with little post-processing still work well.