Our beloved queen of darkness, Chelsea Wolfe blessed her fans with not one but two new songs today, as she unveils a haunting new cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” and her new original, “Green Altar.” Both songs prove once again that once you start listening to Chelsea Wolfe’s signature voice, she won’t let go of you until the very last note. The songs manifest themselves inside and will stay until the end. The songs originate from her Birth Of Violence tour sessions.
“While preparing for the ‘Birth of Violence’ tour, I was watching a lot of Joni Mitchell videos,” Wolfe says. “A 1966 Canadian performance that I found of hers ended up inspiring the video for my song ‘Highway.’ One night after working on the live set, Ben and I were hanging out and I was just letting the Joni videos roll.. ‘Woodstock’ came on and I started singing along. After that I simply asked Ben if he’d be into covering it with me for the tour, and we just went back into the studio and started working it out. The cover came together quite naturally and it was `a treat to play on stage every night. Joni is obviously such a big inspiration to this side of my music, so it felt right to pay tribute to her.”
And she also explains a little background to the newest original release. “‘Green Altar’ is a cherished song that unfortunately didn’t make it onto the album. It’s a love song I wrote after finding out that my dear friends (artist) Bill Crisafi and (designer) Hogan McLaughlin were engaged. I envisioned them getting married in a lush, green outdoor space outside of some majestic castle ruins.” The single once again shows the world the sophisticated darkness that Wolfe brings to the table. It will haunt the listeners in the best possible way and every single note works like a spell.
With the new songs also comes another exciting project by the singer-songwriter, the official documentary surrounding her cut short 2019 Birth Of Violence tour. The documentary, which was directed and produced by Bobby Cochran, features scenes onstage and backstage, giving the fan insights of Wolfe’s touring live.
Wolfe tells about the documentary, “It’s not my natural inclination to want cameras around when I’m in my head or doing vocal warmups before a show, or when I’m with friends or family backstage, but Bobby asked, and in the spirit of pushing myself to document that era of my musical life, I welcomed him along. Then, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit and I had to fly home from the European acoustic tour before I got to play a single show of it, I was so grateful that he had this footage and was putting it together. I wanted to share this documentary for that reason as well, for those who had tickets to cancelled shows (I love you!), and as a sort of wave goodbye to the time I spent focused on ‘Birth of Violence’, as I’m now making plans for and in the headspace of the next new album.”
Wolfe will be part of this year’s Substance festival in LA.
Photo credit: Ekaterina Gorbacheva
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