Chelsea Wolfe with support by Mary Jane Dunphe at the Button Factory, Dublin. Photos by Erin Plaice.
-
-
In case you had any doubt in your mind, witches are indeed real and they can cast powerful spells as Chelsea Wolfe proved on Tuesday evening. As the 34-year-old Californian takes to the Tivoli’s stage, she seems awkward, or even a little clumsy at first. As she walks to the front of the stage, with the lights still up, she gives a small wave and smile to the audience. She seems more shy than one might have imagined. Then, the lights go down and that shyness is devoured by the waves of noise that follow. As the pulsing terror that…
-
Currently on tour in Europe, the bewitching force that is Chelsea Wolfe will play Belfast’s Limelight on July 23 and Dublin’s Tivoli Theatre on July 24. Ahead of those shows, the Californian goth-rock artist talks to Jack Rudden about new music, her country music background, the ideal breakfast and more. On your latest release, Aaron Turner of Post Metal icons ISIS featured on the track ‘Vex’. What was it like collaborating with Aaron and have you any plans to collaborate with other artists in the near future? CW: I also collaborated with Troy Van Leeuwen of QOTSA, and my longtime bandmate…
-
Two years on from an extraordinary show at The Button Factory, Californian singer-songwriter Chelsea Wolfe has announced that she will return to Dublin to play Whelan’s on April 15. Kicking off an 11 date European tour that concludes in Athens two weeks later, full ticket details for the show – including price – are yet to be announced. Check out the full European tour dates below and stream a highlight from her 2015 album Abyss below.
-
Chelsea Wolfe fans at this corner of Europe must have been keeping a close eye on the blogs and Twitter feeds over this tour, one fraught with trouble for the singer. A date in Poznan was cancelled due to Wolfe battling bronchitis. After losing her voice onstage in Budapest, the following night’s Vienna appearance was also cancelled, but the singer managed to gain the upper hand in the battle for the bronchial tubes to honour the rest of the schedule. In The Button Factory tonight, it’s as if each note is precious, each breath a blessing. Nothing is wasted. Wolfe…
-
Having released Abyss – her heaviest (and finest) album to date – back in August, Chelsea Wolfe is well and truly an artist who has come good on a sense of extraordinary promise. Ahead of her show at Dublin’s Button Factory on Wednesday, November 25, Mike McGrath Bryan chats to the L.A. artist about touring, digging deep creatively and the sonic imprint of sleep paralysis. Abyss is drawn from the nightmares and situations created by sleep paralysis and other ailments. How was it to confront them creatively? It happened without overthinking it. I’ve had sleep and dream issues my whole life, and over time…
-
Treacle-thick tones and monolithic riffing set the tone immediately for Chelsea Wolfe’s latest excursion, Abyss. Long a much-fancied purveyor of doomy, layered heaviness, the record’s title is apt to say the least. ‘Carrion Flowers’ trudges along, industrial tinges emerging here and there in clatterslap percussion as Wolfe’s sultry voice blushes the whole thing with a beautiful fatalism, her range equally as enviable as her depth and strength as an artist. The mechanics of the record maintain consistency throughout, alternating between gentle, damned balladry, and guttural sludge in the likes of ‘Iron Moon’. ‘Dragged Out’s’ looping, keening highnotes invest a detached,…
-
And so it goes. After many years playing host to thousands of bands from every corner of the earth and providing a hugely important platform for innumerable local bands and artists, Auntie Annie’s, one of Belfast’s most loved music venues, breathes its final breath tonight having announced its imminent closure. As is only to be expected, the scene is a strange contrast of sorts: downstairs in the main bar the atmosphere is one of ecstatic – if not naturally hesitant – celebration; upstairs, a significantly more mournful mood takes hold in advance of one final night of pining, transatlantic folk.…