Chelsea Wolfe — Abyss (August 7th, 2015) |
Chelsea Wolfe — Abyss (August 7th, 2015)ζ→ Darkly distinctive singer/songwriter with nods to electronic, folk, and metal. ζ→ Crafting “doom–drenched electric folk.” Location: Los Angeles, California
Album release: August 7th, 2015
Record Label: Sargent House
Duration: 55:56
Tracks:
01. Carrion Flowers 4:54
02. Iron Moon 5:50
03. Dragged Out 4:23
04. Maw 5:57
05. Grey Days 5:23
06. After the Fall 5:39
07. Crazy Love 3:37
08. Simple Death 5:25
09. Survive 5:42
10. Color of Blood 4:51
11. The Abyss 4:15
℗ 2015 Sargent House
Personnel:
ζ→ Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) guitar
ζ→ Ezra Buchla viola
ζ→ Dylan Fujioka drums
ζ→ Ben Chisholm multi–instrumentalist, writer
ζ→ John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent) producer
Live band:
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe: guitar, vocals
ζ→ Ben Chisholm: bass, keys, programming
ζ→ Dylan Fujioka: drums
ζ→ Aurielle Zeitler: guitarDescription:
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe has returned with her fourth full length album, Abyss, out August 7th 2015 on Sargent House, and you can hear / download the first single “Iron Moon” now. Originally premiered via Rolling Stone, who called it a, “haunting, doomy exercise in loud–quiet–loud dynamics” and her “darkest, heaviest and most personal album yet.”
ζ→ “Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious,” says Wolfe.To conjure this in–between world, Wolfe continued her ongoing collaboration with multi–instrumentalist and co–writer Ben Chisholm and drummer Dylan Fujioka, with Ezra Buchla brought on board to play viola and Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) enlisted to contribute guitar. The ensemble traveled to Dallas, TX to record with producer John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent). In the back of her mind burned the words of designer Yohji Yamamoto: “Perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.” The resulting eleven songs reflect that philosophy as they smolder with human frailty, intimacy, quiet passion, anxiety, and deep longing. © Photo credit: Shaina Hedlund Photography / Stylist: Summer Lawson / Makeup: Kali Kennedy, Austin, TX
REVIEW
BY MICHELLE GESLANI ON APRIL 28, 2015, 6:20PM
ζ→ California neo–folk songwriter returns this summer with her fourth LP.
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe returns with a new album, Abyss, on August 7th via Sargent House. The 11–track effort follows Pain is Beauty, one of 2013’s best albums of the year, and was recorded with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Swans) in Dallas, Texas. That’s the artwork above.
ζ→ According to a press release, the LP plays out like a “score” to a realm Wolfe describes as “the hazy afterlife … an inverted thunderstorm … the dark backward … the abyss of time,” and explores heady subjects of “human frailty, intimacy, quiet passion, anxiety, and deep longing.”
ζ→ The experimental rocker added, “Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious.”
ζ→ As a preview, Wolfe’s let loose “Iron Moon”, quite possibly one of the loudest, most torrid numbers in her repertoire. With vocals ablaze and baying, and harsh, devilish riffs raining down all around her, Wolfe sounds like a true goddess of the afterlife. • http://consequenceofsound.net/
Artist Biography by Heather Phares
ζ→ Crafting "doom–drenched electric folk," Los Angeles' Chelsea Wolfe brings a foreboding feel to songs as disparate as "You Are My Sunshine" and album tracks by Norwegian black metal icon Burzum. Wolfe grew up in Northern California with a father who had a country band and his own home studio, so she was immersed in music at an early age and began recording herself at age nine; by the time she was in fourth grade, she knew she wanted to be a singer. However, it wasn't until 2009, when she returned from a three–month tour with a performance artist friend in spaces including old nuclear factories, that she began making music for others to hear. Wolfe recorded with her friends on a portable eight–track, the results of which became her 2010 debut album, The Grime and the Glow. Wolfe also contributed a radically different version of the Strokes' "The Modern Age" to a tribute to the band curated by Stereogum.com, and her song "Moses" was used to soundtrack artist/director Richard Phillips' short film Sasha Grey.
ζ→ After moving to L.A., Wolfe recorded her second album, Apokalypsis, in a proper studio, working with musicians including Ben Chisholm; it was released by Pendu Sound Recordings in August 2011. Wolfe took a few musicians, including Chisholm, into the Northern California woods to record Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs, which was released in October 2012. Prayer for the Unborn, her contribution to Southern Records' Latitudes EP series, arrived a few weeks later. Nearly a year later, Wolfe returned with the more electronic–leaning Pain Is Beauty, which featured Chisholm as a co–producer as well as the work of longtime bandmembers Kevin Dockter and Dylan Fujioka. She then collaborated with King Dude on a pair of split singles and appeared on Russian Circles' fifth album, Memorial. Lone, an hourlong movie directed by Mark Pellington and featuring music from Pain Is Beauty, was released in 2014. For her fourth full–length, Abyss, Wolfe shifted gears again, focusing on the doomiest, metal–inspired aspects of her music. Along with Chisholm and Fujioka, her collaborators included producer John Congleton and Russian Circles' Mike Sullivan. The album arrived in August 2015.
Discography:
♦ 2006 Mistake in Parting
♦ 2010 The Grime and the Glow
♦ 2011 Apokalypsis
♦ 2012 Live at Roadburn 2012
♦ 2012 Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs
♦ 2013 Pain Is Beauty
♦ 2015 Abyss
Website: http://www.chelseawolfe.net/
Label: http://sargenthouse.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cchelseawwolfe
Bandcamp: https://chelseawolfe.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cchelseawwolfe
Agent: North America: Christian Bernhardt — The Agency Group: •
Europe/UK: Odyssey Booking — Vincent Royers:
PRESS:
US: Motormouth Media —
UK: Lauren Barley / Rarely Unable
•
GERMANY: Kathrin Wagmüller / Wagmüller PR
•
LICENSING/LABEL: © Photo credit: Nick Fancher Photography / Hair: Hair by Adrian Arredondo / Makeup: @kalikennedy
BIO
by BRIAN COOK, 2015
ζ→ Sleep paralysis plagues singer/songwriter Chelsea Wolfe, and that strange intersection of the conscious and the unconscious has inadvertently manifested itself within her work. Across the span of her first four albums, there is an underlying tension, a distorted and nebulous territory where dark shadows hover along the edges of the sublime and the graceful. But until now, Wolfe’s trials and tribulations with the boundaries between dreams and reality have only been a subconscious influence on her work. With her fifth album, Abyss, she deliberately confronts those boundaries and crafts a score to that realm she describes as the “hazy afterlife… an inverted thunderstorm… the dark backward… the abyss of time.”
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe’s material has always felt intensely private, from the almost voyeuristic bedroom–production aesthetic of her debut album The Grime and the Glow to the stark themes and atmospheres of 2013’s Pain Is Beauty. “Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious,” says Wolfe. To conjure this in–between world, Wolfe continued her ongoing collaboration with multi–instrumentalist and co–writer Ben Chisholm and drummer Dylan Fujioka, with Ezra Buchla brought on board to play viola and Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) enlisted to contribute guitar. The ensemble traveled to Dallas, TX to record with producer John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent). In the back of her mind burned the words of designer Yohji Yamamoto: “Perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.” The resulting eleven songs reflect that philosophy as they smolder with human frailty, intimacy, quiet passion, anxiety, and deep longing.
ζ→ “Sleep and dream issues have followed me my whole life,” remarks Wolfe as she revisits notes from the writing and recording sessions. In a way, these issues have become a part of Chelsea Wolfe’s identity, for whom the notion of sleep as an escape has been subverted. Abyss captures this dichotomy, this battle between the soothing and the upsetting, and demonstrates why Chelsea Wolfe has become one of the most intriguing songwriters of the decade.
CARRION FLOWERS LYRICS
WE LEARNED HOW ON OUR OWN
NEVER NEEDING HELP FROM YOU
REACHING OUT WITH EYES CLOSED
WE FELT THE LIGHT, IT TAUGHT US TO GROW
(HOLD, HOLD, HOLD ON)
CREATURES OF HABIT, CARRION FLOWERS
GROWING FROM REPEATED CRIMES
THE AFTERGLOW IN FULL BLOOM
SLOW AND RELENTLESS, WE’RE AFTER YOU
HOLD ON TO THE PAIN
OF LOVE TAKEN FROM YOU —
A PLAGUE
(HOLD, HOLD, HOLD ON)
_____________________________________________________________
Chelsea Wolfe — Abyss (August 7th, 2015) |
Chelsea Wolfe — Abyss (August 7th, 2015)ζ→ Darkly distinctive singer/songwriter with nods to electronic, folk, and metal. ζ→ Crafting “doom–drenched electric folk.” Location: Los Angeles, California
Album release: August 7th, 2015
Record Label: Sargent House
Duration: 55:56
Tracks:
01. Carrion Flowers 4:54
02. Iron Moon 5:50
03. Dragged Out 4:23
04. Maw 5:57
05. Grey Days 5:23
06. After the Fall 5:39
07. Crazy Love 3:37
08. Simple Death 5:25
09. Survive 5:42
10. Color of Blood 4:51
11. The Abyss 4:15
℗ 2015 Sargent House
Personnel:
ζ→ Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) guitar
ζ→ Ezra Buchla viola
ζ→ Dylan Fujioka drums
ζ→ Ben Chisholm multi–instrumentalist, writer
ζ→ John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent) producer
Live band:
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe: guitar, vocals
ζ→ Ben Chisholm: bass, keys, programming
ζ→ Dylan Fujioka: drums
ζ→ Aurielle Zeitler: guitarDescription:
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe has returned with her fourth full length album, Abyss, out August 7th 2015 on Sargent House, and you can hear / download the first single “Iron Moon” now. Originally premiered via Rolling Stone, who called it a, “haunting, doomy exercise in loud–quiet–loud dynamics” and her “darkest, heaviest and most personal album yet.”
ζ→ “Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious,” says Wolfe.To conjure this in–between world, Wolfe continued her ongoing collaboration with multi–instrumentalist and co–writer Ben Chisholm and drummer Dylan Fujioka, with Ezra Buchla brought on board to play viola and Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) enlisted to contribute guitar. The ensemble traveled to Dallas, TX to record with producer John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent). In the back of her mind burned the words of designer Yohji Yamamoto: “Perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.” The resulting eleven songs reflect that philosophy as they smolder with human frailty, intimacy, quiet passion, anxiety, and deep longing. © Photo credit: Shaina Hedlund Photography / Stylist: Summer Lawson / Makeup: Kali Kennedy, Austin, TX
REVIEW
BY MICHELLE GESLANI ON APRIL 28, 2015, 6:20PM
ζ→ California neo–folk songwriter returns this summer with her fourth LP.
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe returns with a new album, Abyss, on August 7th via Sargent House. The 11–track effort follows Pain is Beauty, one of 2013’s best albums of the year, and was recorded with producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Swans) in Dallas, Texas. That’s the artwork above.
ζ→ According to a press release, the LP plays out like a “score” to a realm Wolfe describes as “the hazy afterlife … an inverted thunderstorm … the dark backward … the abyss of time,” and explores heady subjects of “human frailty, intimacy, quiet passion, anxiety, and deep longing.”
ζ→ The experimental rocker added, “Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious.”
ζ→ As a preview, Wolfe’s let loose “Iron Moon”, quite possibly one of the loudest, most torrid numbers in her repertoire. With vocals ablaze and baying, and harsh, devilish riffs raining down all around her, Wolfe sounds like a true goddess of the afterlife. • http://consequenceofsound.net/
Artist Biography by Heather Phares
ζ→ Crafting "doom–drenched electric folk," Los Angeles' Chelsea Wolfe brings a foreboding feel to songs as disparate as "You Are My Sunshine" and album tracks by Norwegian black metal icon Burzum. Wolfe grew up in Northern California with a father who had a country band and his own home studio, so she was immersed in music at an early age and began recording herself at age nine; by the time she was in fourth grade, she knew she wanted to be a singer. However, it wasn't until 2009, when she returned from a three–month tour with a performance artist friend in spaces including old nuclear factories, that she began making music for others to hear. Wolfe recorded with her friends on a portable eight–track, the results of which became her 2010 debut album, The Grime and the Glow. Wolfe also contributed a radically different version of the Strokes' "The Modern Age" to a tribute to the band curated by Stereogum.com, and her song "Moses" was used to soundtrack artist/director Richard Phillips' short film Sasha Grey.
ζ→ After moving to L.A., Wolfe recorded her second album, Apokalypsis, in a proper studio, working with musicians including Ben Chisholm; it was released by Pendu Sound Recordings in August 2011. Wolfe took a few musicians, including Chisholm, into the Northern California woods to record Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs, which was released in October 2012. Prayer for the Unborn, her contribution to Southern Records' Latitudes EP series, arrived a few weeks later. Nearly a year later, Wolfe returned with the more electronic–leaning Pain Is Beauty, which featured Chisholm as a co–producer as well as the work of longtime bandmembers Kevin Dockter and Dylan Fujioka. She then collaborated with King Dude on a pair of split singles and appeared on Russian Circles' fifth album, Memorial. Lone, an hourlong movie directed by Mark Pellington and featuring music from Pain Is Beauty, was released in 2014. For her fourth full–length, Abyss, Wolfe shifted gears again, focusing on the doomiest, metal–inspired aspects of her music. Along with Chisholm and Fujioka, her collaborators included producer John Congleton and Russian Circles' Mike Sullivan. The album arrived in August 2015.
Discography:
♦ 2006 Mistake in Parting
♦ 2010 The Grime and the Glow
♦ 2011 Apokalypsis
♦ 2012 Live at Roadburn 2012
♦ 2012 Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs
♦ 2013 Pain Is Beauty
♦ 2015 Abyss
Website: http://www.chelseawolfe.net/
Label: http://sargenthouse.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cchelseawwolfe
Bandcamp: https://chelseawolfe.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cchelseawwolfe
Agent: North America: Christian Bernhardt — The Agency Group: •
Europe/UK: Odyssey Booking — Vincent Royers:
PRESS:
US: Motormouth Media —
UK: Lauren Barley / Rarely Unable
•
GERMANY: Kathrin Wagmüller / Wagmüller PR
•
LICENSING/LABEL: © Photo credit: Nick Fancher Photography / Hair: Hair by Adrian Arredondo / Makeup: @kalikennedy
BIO
by BRIAN COOK, 2015
ζ→ Sleep paralysis plagues singer/songwriter Chelsea Wolfe, and that strange intersection of the conscious and the unconscious has inadvertently manifested itself within her work. Across the span of her first four albums, there is an underlying tension, a distorted and nebulous territory where dark shadows hover along the edges of the sublime and the graceful. But until now, Wolfe’s trials and tribulations with the boundaries between dreams and reality have only been a subconscious influence on her work. With her fifth album, Abyss, she deliberately confronts those boundaries and crafts a score to that realm she describes as the “hazy afterlife… an inverted thunderstorm… the dark backward… the abyss of time.”
ζ→ Chelsea Wolfe’s material has always felt intensely private, from the almost voyeuristic bedroom–production aesthetic of her debut album The Grime and the Glow to the stark themes and atmospheres of 2013’s Pain Is Beauty. “Abyss is meant to have the feeling of when you’re dreaming, and you briefly wake up, but then fall back asleep into the same dream, diving quickly into your own subconscious,” says Wolfe. To conjure this in–between world, Wolfe continued her ongoing collaboration with multi–instrumentalist and co–writer Ben Chisholm and drummer Dylan Fujioka, with Ezra Buchla brought on board to play viola and Mike Sullivan (Russian Circles) enlisted to contribute guitar. The ensemble traveled to Dallas, TX to record with producer John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent). In the back of her mind burned the words of designer Yohji Yamamoto: “Perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.” The resulting eleven songs reflect that philosophy as they smolder with human frailty, intimacy, quiet passion, anxiety, and deep longing.
ζ→ “Sleep and dream issues have followed me my whole life,” remarks Wolfe as she revisits notes from the writing and recording sessions. In a way, these issues have become a part of Chelsea Wolfe’s identity, for whom the notion of sleep as an escape has been subverted. Abyss captures this dichotomy, this battle between the soothing and the upsetting, and demonstrates why Chelsea Wolfe has become one of the most intriguing songwriters of the decade.
CARRION FLOWERS LYRICS
WE LEARNED HOW ON OUR OWN
NEVER NEEDING HELP FROM YOU
REACHING OUT WITH EYES CLOSED
WE FELT THE LIGHT, IT TAUGHT US TO GROW
(HOLD, HOLD, HOLD ON)
CREATURES OF HABIT, CARRION FLOWERS
GROWING FROM REPEATED CRIMES
THE AFTERGLOW IN FULL BLOOM
SLOW AND RELENTLESS, WE’RE AFTER YOU
HOLD ON TO THE PAIN
OF LOVE TAKEN FROM YOU —
A PLAGUE
(HOLD, HOLD, HOLD ON)
_____________________________________________________________