The last time we saw Chelsea Wolfe at the First Unitarian Church was in 2013, when the singer/songwriter played two beautifully haunting acoustic shows in one night at the ultra-intimate Chapel of the historic church and venue. However, this coming Saturday (12/7) and Monday (12/9) Wolfe will return to The Church to headline two “Intimate Evening[s] of Songs Laid Bare” in the far bigger, but equally haunting, Sanctuary of the First Unitarian Church.
Chelsea Wolfe has spent the majority of 2024 touring her latest LP, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, which dropped in February on her new home of Loma Vista and received profound praise from a plethora of major outlets. Bandcamp characterized the LP as, “her long-awaited ambush, sublimating all the sinister sounds she’s mastered thus far (lo-fi folk, doom metal, noise rock, gothic pop, experimental electronic) into a career-spanning magnum opus,” while NPR Music called it, “So transporting and cathartic. If every window in your house is not shaking when you have this on, you clearly don’t have it loud enough.”
In addition to a tour documentary (“She Reaches Out,” which hit YouTube in May) and a second Tiny Desk Concert (which premiered in October), She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She spawned two companion EPs. Undone, which dropped in August, features remixes from the likes of †††, Full of Hell, and Boy Harsher. And Unbound, which was released just last month, boasts stripped-down renditions of four SROTSROTS tracks, plus a cover of Spiritbox’s “Cellar Door,” which serves to prep fans for these six select intimate evenings of music, which begin tonight in Massachusetts. I recently got a chance to chat with Chelsea Wolfe about all of this during a brief break between live jaunts.
Izzy Cihak: You’ve spent the better part of the year touring She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, your seventh studio album. In addition to your regular collaborators, you also worked with [producer] Dave Sitek, Shawn Everett [who mixed the album], and Heba Kadry [who mastered the album], who are basically an all-star lineup, having worked on an incredible number of amazing records. How was it working with each of them and having them contribute to your latest sounds?
Chelsea Wolfe: Heba is so talented – and she actually mastered the album twice! Once when we first mixed it with Dave, and then again when Shawn did the final mix. Honored to have her touch on both versions. Sitek brought so much new sound and energy to the songs and together we transformed them from rock demos into electronic-leaning. Shawn Everett pulled out so much dynamic and really brought them to life.
Izzy: Have you had any favorite reactions to the new material, whether from journalists or just fans? There have been a lot of really wonderful things written about it.
Chelsea: I was surprised by the amount of support and love it’s received! And also, in a way I knew that by being more raw and vulnerable within these songs and in how I spoke openly about the album it would draw the right people in.
Izzy: Do you happen to have a favorite song off of the album at the moment, or one that’s most fun to play live?
Chelsea: “Tunnel Lights” has been my favorite one to play live this year. It’s got a lot of dynamic range, so I get to sing these really delicate lines and then when it opens up on the choruses I dig in a bit more, vocally. I also stumbled into replacing the third verse with a bit of The Cranberries’ “Zombie” during this last European tour and that’s been really fun to play around with and sense the audience’s reaction to.
Izzy: This is also your first album for Loma Vista, which is home to so many of our favorite artists (Indigo De Souza, Soccer Mommy, HEALTH, Sleater-Kinney, Margo Price…) How is it working with them and being a part of that family?
Chelsea: Loma Vista has been very supportive in pushing this record forward, from getting that new mix done with Shawn Everett, to the remix project, and then encouraging the Unbound EP with stripped-down versions, and more. It’s been honestly great, and for real, such a cool roster.
Izzy: You’ve done so much this year, between the LP, the two EPs, the touring, the tour doc, the Tiny Desk Concert… What have been some of the personal highlights of 2024 for you?
Chelsea: Getting back on the road and touring heavily again has been a highlight… and also a breaking point! There has been a lot of personal growth being back onstage and traveling a lot again.
Izzy: What are your thoughts on Philadelphia? You’ve played here a ton of times over the years, mostly at Underground Arts and Union Transfer, but I did see you in the tiny room of First Unitarian Church in 2013. Any favorite memories?
Chelsea: I love playing in Philadelphia, and I loved that show in the tiny room of First Unitarian. A favorite memory is when BloodMilk invited me to play a special acoustic set in their showroom there, Sphinx & Snakeskin – it was very intimate and the room was filled with friends and like-minded creatives celebrating Samhain, very special.
Izzy: How do you like playing sort of non-traditional spaces, like churches, compared to black box rock clubs? They can definitely provide a nice change of pace, but I also feel like a lot of your music fits exceptionally well in spaces like old churches.
Chelsea: I dig both, really. It can sometimes feel more stressful to create the show you want to present in a space that’s not normally set up for it, but it’s worth it. I especially love if the space has natural reverb, like Grace Cathedral in San Francisco for example. Sometimes an old rock club really does the trick though, even if it’s kind of dank, ha. I just played one like that in the UK and ended up having the best night.
Izzy: What can be expected of these upcoming intimate dates? I’m guessing it’s going to be fairly different from your dates throughout most of the year.
Chelsea: Yeah, I’ve had a more rock lineup for the She Reaches Out tours this year. This tour will have additional accompaniment at times, but more sparse and experimental, and I’ll play part of the set solo. I like to think I’m working up to doing an entire set solo at some point, but for now I’m enjoying having multi-talented Ben Chisholm on piano and having variety in the set’s presentation.
Izzy: Not to detract from your own music, but are there any artists that you’d especially love the opportunity to see in an acoustic or intimate format? Like a year and a half ago I interviewed Gary Numan, who was actually trying something like that for the first time, which kind of surprised me, considering the length of his career. I do think it would be amazing to see a Nine Inch Nails show with just Trent and a piano.
Chelsea: Chino – I can imagine just his voice and an acoustic guitar version of Deftones songs would be really beautiful.
Izzy: After these upcoming dates, you seem to have a bit of a break before your May dates in Australia and New Zealand. How do you hope and plan to spend that time, whether relating to music or just rest and relaxation?
Chelsea: I plan to work on writing new songs. I love writing during the winter. Not sure if it’ll turn out to be an album, or just songs to release as individuals.
*Get your tickets for 12/7 here.
**Get your tickets for 12/9 here.
