There are actors whose borrowed affectations, accents and emotional accoutrement are a necessary part of their craft. Their work does not exist without adornment. Some musicians, in parallel, require all the trappings of artifice to move their audiences. Wether by bending and shaping their voices into dim, spectral digital funhouse mirrors or by piling high the physical masks, playing dress up to match the zeitgeist, there are those that would insulate anything and everything that would expose the Potemkin wizard.

Chelsea Wolfe is not one of these artists.

On a cloudy day in September, bleakly surrounded on all sides by a pedestrian mall and confined to an emaciated hotel suite, Chelsea found two moments to lay bare the subtle and elaborate inventory of her emotional world in two acoustic preparations, one seated at the edge of her bed, one in a miraculously abandoned stairwell. It took under thirty minutes for her to move myself and her press agent Louise to an affected silence. The experience likely will not translate to the attached document, but if you are the trusting kind, take my word for it, Chelsea Wolfe is worth a thorough investigation and substantial investment of the heart.

Originally published November 11th, 2013 // La Blogotheque