CHELSEA WOLFE ‘BIRTHS’ NEW CD
Post-metal singer-songwriter turns to Bowie and Baez for stripped-back album.
Chelsea Wolfe has returned to her DIY roots on the semi-acoustic Birth Of Violence, out September 13 via Sargent House. Instead of heading into a state-of-the-art studio, the melancholic 12-track was recorded in her woodland home in Northern California.
“Some songs came together better than others, but all of them capture this feeling of home, and putting effort into something that’s intimate and peaceful and stirring after years of beautiful chaos,” Wolfe tells Prog. “I would leave the door open behind me sometimes while doing vocals to catch the sounds of the rain, or would allow the sound of the fire crackling to creep into a song.”
As with previous releases, which include Abyss and 2017’s Hiss Spun, Birth Of Violence sees the musician team up with synth/keyboardist Ben Chisholm. The pair’s raw approach is complimented by drummer Jess Gowrie and viola player
Ezra Buchla who enhance Wolfe’s melancholic sound.
“I actually made a playlist for myself to listen to while recording with a good mix of old country and folk such as Loretta Lynn, Joan Baez, Townes Van Zandt and John Lennon, but there was also some David Bowie, Roky Erickson, Patti Smith, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Neurosis, and even Smashing Pumpkins on there. So, maybe a little bit of all of that is reflected, along with the strange sonic landscapes inside Ben’s mind that gave my songs somewhere to live,” she says.
Although the album cover takes visual cues from Ingmar Bergman’s Summer With Monika, its title goes much deeper.
“I’ve always felt that ‘violence’ is such a beautiful word for something so ugly,” she explains. “This ‘violence’ [in the title] is something subtle, something poetic. When I looked up the word in my old dictionary, one element was ‘strength of emotion’ so I decided to transmute that to my own purpose. It makes me visualise Mother Earth shaking us up because we’ve mistreated her … It feels like the title of a mysterious old book you’d find on a shelf, deep in the labyrinth of a used book store.”
Chelsea Wolfe will showcase the album through a series of intimate acoustic shows in North America this autumn. UK dates are expected to follow next year. NRS
“All of the songs capture this feeling of home.”