Chelsea Wolfe is a singer-songwriter raised in Roseville and Sacramento whose darkly atmospheric music—variously tagged "goth folk," "doom folk" and "doom-metal"—made her one of the Sacramento scene's best-known exports before she relocated to Los Angeles and later back to Northern California.[1][2] Submerge repeatedly framed her as a "Sacramento songwriter," "Sacramento girl" and "rising Sacramentan star," confirming her local origin even as her career went national.[3][4][5] She was born November 14, 1983, in Roseville, California.[6]
At a glance
- From the Greater Sacramento region: "raised in Roseville and Sacramento."[2]
- Style: dark/goth folk evolving into "doom folk" and increasingly heavy, "industrial" work.[3][4][2]
- Recorded her early work herself on a Tascam 488 eight-track handed down from her musician father.[3]
- Albums span lo-fi self-recordings to releases on New York's Pendu Sound and later Sargent House.[3][4][7][1]
- By the mid-2010s had toured with Queens of the Stone Age, charted on the Billboard 200, and had music in trailers for HBO's Game of Thrones and the film Dark Places.[1][2]
Origin and local status
Wolfe was raised in Roseville and Sacramento, both within the Greater Sacramento region, and Submerge consistently identified her as local—calling her a "Sacramento songwriter," referring to "a Sacramento girl," and describing her later as a "rising Sacramentan star."[3][4][2][5] She herself credited Sacramento as the place she found her artistic footing: "I took my time finding my voice and figuring out what the fuck I was doing with my music in Sacramento... there are very supportive folks there and a great community of musicians."[4] She eventually left for Los Angeles, joining a pattern Submerge noted of Sacramento artists "ditching it for Los Angeles."[4] By 2015 she was described as an "ex-Sacramentan," and by 2017 she had moved back to Northern California (to a place where "it snows in the winter"), reporting she had spent more time in Sacramento again but had not played a hometown show since 2012.[1][2]
She was an active part of the local scene early on. In a February 2009 feature on local musicians she mentioned playing a Valentine's Day benefit show for a local art group at Vox Gallery in West Sacramento.[8] A January 2010 scene retrospective noted ex-members of local band Buildings Breeding had begun "playing with Chelsea Wolfe," placing her within Sacramento's working-musician network.[9]
Early life and formation
Wolfe's musical instincts emerged very young: according to Wikipedia, she wrote her first poem by age 7 and had already written and recorded songs by age 9—described as "basically Casio-based gothy R&B songs"—working in the home studio of her father, a country musician.[10] That same home-studio lineage is reflected in the Tascam 488 eight-track her father handed down to her, which she used to record The Grime and the Glow.[3]
Before any of her recognized releases, Wolfe composed an unreleased debut album called Mistake in Parting in 2006, which she later dismissed as "a shitty singer-songwriter breakup album."[11]
Sound and influences
Wolfe's early music was described as dark or "goth folk," "dressing folk music in a black cloak," and later as "doom folk"—a layered style Submerge placed somewhere "between PJ Harvey's angelic call... and Gorgoroth's wickedly dirty odes to Satan."[3][4] By 2017 critics had tagged her with everything from "goth" to "doom-metal," though Submerge stressed her "heavy aesthetic is grounded in delicate songwriting and haunting, siren vocals."[2] She characteristically pairs heavy, distorted, reverb-drenched textures with starkly clean vocals.[3][4]
Wolfe has said she draws inspiration more from authors, poets, painters and filmmakers than from other musicians, even avoiding listening to music for years so as not to "infuse anyone else's sound into my own."[3] Recurring touchstones include Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (a lifelong favorite, whose character of Death she cites as an enduring influence), David Lynch's Eraserhead, Jean Rollin's vampire films, and The American Astronaut.[3][2] The title of her album The Grime and the Glow came from Louis-Ferdinand Céline's novel Death on the Installment Plan.[3] She has also cited Biblical, Nordic and Greek mythological imagery (from a religious upbringing), and a fascination with contrasts: "idealism and reality, physicality and spirituality, light and death."[4] Childhood insomnia, night terrors and sleep paralysis—and stays at a sleep research facility as a child—became recurring sources of visual and lyrical inspiration, notably for Hiss Spun.[2]
Stage presence
During her earliest live performances, Wolfe wore a black veil over her face due to extreme stage fright.[12] Submerge similarly noted that severe stage frustration once led her to abandon shows after two or three songs.[4] Performing was something she had to work through over years before becoming a confident live presence.
Discography and timeline
Wolfe's recorded output, as documented across Submerge's coverage:
- Soundtrack VHS/Gold — an earlier full-length recorded in a studio in an attempt to make a "tapenoise-sounding" album; released in an extremely limited run of about 50 CDs on Chicago-based indie label Jeune Été Records. Wolfe was dissatisfied with the lengthy recording process.[3]
- The Grime and the Glow (2010) — recorded by Wolfe herself on a Tascam 488 eight-track handed down from her musician father, deliberately lo-fi and "strange and special fucked up"; released on limited-edition vinyl by New York-based Pendu Sound. Tracks include "Cousins of the Antichrist," "Halfsleeper," "Advice & Vices," "The Whys," "Moses" and "Bounce House Demons," with companion videos (one shot by local horror filmmaker Jason Rudy). The album cover was a tribute to The Seventh Seal, shot by Wolfe's friend, writer Jessalyn Wakefield.[3][2]
- Apokalypsis (2011) — again on Pendu Sound Recordings; continued her dark, texture-focused, Biblically referential approach. Includes a cover of Burzum's "Black Spell of Destruction." Drew a glowing review from The Needle Drop's Anthony Fantano and an NPR review by Lars Gotrich.[4][2]
- Unknown Rooms: A Collection of Acoustic Songs (Oct. 16, 2012) — an acoustic album.[4]
- Pain Is Beauty (2013) — released on Sargent House; named the #1 album on Submerge's Top 30 Albums of 2013, described as "a beautifully haunting album" with "ghostly vocals, layered with cascading guitars, violins and synths." Includes "Feral Love."[7][2][13]
- Abyss (Aug. 7, 2015) — her fourth full-length, on Sargent House; her "heaviest and most personal" to that point. Recorded in Dallas, Texas with producer/engineer John Congleton (Swans, St. Vincent). Singles "Iron Moon" (debuted on Rolling Stone) and "Carrion Flowers" (debuted on NPR's All Songs Considered).[1]
- Hiss Spun (Sept. 22, 2017) — her sixth studio album, her heaviest and "most scourgingly personal" work, described as having "an element of exorcism." Song titles include "Vex," "Strain," "Welt," "Scrape" and "16 Psyche." Cover and "16 Psyche" video drew on her childhood sleep-research imagery.[2]
- Birth of Violence (Sept. 13, 2019) — written and recorded in seclusion at her home in Northern California; reached #5 on the Billboard US Independent Albums chart. (Note: Wikipedia's Birth of Violence article labels this her sixth studio album,[14] while Submerge's 2017 coverage labels Hiss Spun as her sixth[2] — the discrepancy likely reflects differing treatment of Unknown Rooms or Soundtrack VHS/Gold in the count.)
- Mrs. Piss side project — Wolfe and drummer Jess Gowrie formed the project Mrs. Piss, releasing the debut album Self-Surgery on May 29, 2020, through Sargent House.[15]
- Bloodmoon: I (Nov. 19, 2021) — a collaborative album with metalcore band Converge.[16]
- She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She (Feb. 9, 2024) — her eighth studio album, released on Loma Vista Recordings (signed September 2023), produced by Dave Sitek; primarily electronica with trip-hop, gothic rock, and industrial influences.[17]
Collaborators and band
The Grime and the Glow was a solo project but a collaborative effort, with appearances by Andrew Henderson of G.Green, Ian Bone of Darling Chemicalia, and Ruven Reveles. Kevin Dockter, Drew Walker and Addison Quarles—collectively known as The Death—plus Ben C. also contributed and came together as Wolfe's band; this lineup planned a five-song EP recorded in a proper studio.[3]
By the mid-2010s her core collaborators were co-writer/multi-instrumentalist Ben Chisholm and drummer Dylan Fujioka, with Ezra Buchla (viola) and Mike Sullivan of Russian Circles (guitar) on Abyss.[1] On Hiss Spun she added guitar/vocal work from Queens of the Stone Age's Troy Van Leeuwen and Isis' Aaron Turner, with guitarist Ben Tulao.[2] A key catalyst for Hiss Spun was the reunion with drummer Jess Gowrie: the two had been in a Sacramento band called Red Host years earlier, before Wolfe left to pursue her own project, and reconnected after roughly seven years apart.[2] She also collaborated with the band Deafheaven, singing on the duet "Night People" from their 2018 album Ordinary Corrupt Human Love.[18]
Career trajectory and recognition
Submerge tracked Wolfe's rise from local cafés—where, in her own telling, severe stage frustration once led her to abandon shows after two or three songs—to international acclaim.[4] The 2009 Summer of Hate era saw her opening local bills; on June 29, 2010, she played Sacramento's Blue Lamp on a Brian McKenna-booked show beneath touring acts Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles.[5] Her Sept. 5, 2012 return to Harlow's—a bill she insisted on curating herself, adding local acts Screature and ESS—came as she released Unknown Rooms.[4]
Over the following years she toured with Queens of the Stone Age, landed magazine covers worldwide, and placed music in trailers for HBO's Game of Thrones and the film Dark Places; her last two albums cracked the Billboard 200.[1][2] Returning to play Ace of Spades in Sacramento on Nov. 3, 2017 (with Youth Code and Screature)—her first hometown show since 2012—she was billed as a "rising Sacramentan star."[2] She returned again to Ace of Spades on March 26, 2018, opening for Ministry, where Submerge described her set as "a melodic counterpoint of smoldering doom" drawn mostly from Hiss Spun and closing on "Feral Love."[2][5]