Chelsea Wolfe at Vacation Vinyl on Friday february 11th, 2011

I’m not exactly sure why Chelsea Wolfe sang with a black lace veil in front of her face, may be to reinforce a sort of mystery her music produces, may be to concentrate more on her slowly sonic-expanding songs served by her powerful and pure voice.

She sang only a few songs, just after King Dude at Vacation Vinyl on Friday night, but one of them was all about harmonies with her deep vocals floating over desolated and cold landscapes of organ and guitar, while another one was a stormier, more distorted experimental composition, deserted of these harmonies, but haunted by a sinister organ and a weird and chilling atmosphere.
It pretty difficult to get a good idea of an artist with just about 3 songs, but I was looking at people while she was playing and all of them were staring, fascinated, almost under a sort of hypnotic spell.

She is pretty hard to categorize and difficult to listen to at times, but her gothic music may bring you dangerous visions of witches and morose hallucinations of some other dimensions, I don’t know, I would need to see more of her to tell.

Chelsea Wolfe cites Ingmar Bergman, David Lynch, soviets, death and the end of the world among her influences, and describes her music as ‘Psychedelia without the drugs’. She is now based in Los Angeles, a proof she is not completely afraid of the sunlight, and has released a new album last December, ‘The Grime and the Glow’ which is on sale at Vacation Vinyl.