After achieving sobriety and “channeling a future version” of herself through three releases in 2024, Chelsea Wolfe looks to cap the year off with two performances in the Sanctuary of the First Unitarian Church on Saturday and Monday.
Wolfe’s 2024 album, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, saw her embrace trip-hop influences of artists she’s adored over the years, including Massive Attack, Tricky, and Portishead. Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio fame produced the record, and his studio filled with vintage samplers and synths provided Wolfe a “new palette to work with.”
In her early works, such as 2011’s Apokalypsis, Wolfe said she used her voice in a “cinematic, instrumental way,” singing through various reverb and delay effects. But with her latest material, the vocals became the star of the show.
“I was really ready to have my voice be upfront and more clear, more raw, and more present,” Wolfe said. “I really don’t think of this album as a reintroduction. I actually kind of think of it as a bridge, like maybe a liminal space in between two eras of myself or like two books of my own life as an artist.”
Visually, the album was inspired by her viewing an anime film from 1985 called Angel’s Egg, which features Biblical allegories spread throughout its 71 minutes.
“When I first saw the film, I saw it without subtitles,” she said. “So, for me, it was kind of this visual journey, this post-apocalyptic visual story about a girl protecting this ominous egg, which I think represents some kind of important new beginning for her and for the world. I really clung onto that as a starting point for my own visual world for this album.”
The journey Wolfe took to her recent releases involved not only collaborations, but also letting go of her past. In 2021, Wolfe released Bloodmoon: I with the legendary hardcore group Converge. That same year, Wolfe also achieved sobriety, which she said was important for the “personal and creative work” she needed to do to “find a new path forward.”
“I was definitely channeling that into this album as I wrote it, and actually getting to release this music finally and tour on it has been a trip,” Wolfe said. “I feel like I’m still learning so much from these songs and from this album and the theme of it. I do feel like a lot of the songs were sort of channeled from a future version of myself, and so I’m sort of like still kind of reaching forward trying to learn these lessons so I can get to that next phase.”
Wolfe also released companion EPs this year, as a tip of the cap, of sorts, to one of her other lifelong favorite artists, Nine Inch Nails. Undone features six remixes by artists such as ††† (Crosses) and Full Of Hell, while Unbound features five stripped-back versions of her new tracks.
“The title of the album indicates this sort of trio or a triptych, like the ‘she’ of the past reaching out to the ‘she’ of the present, reaching out to the ‘she’ of the future,” Wolfe said. “So I kind of felt like it was cool to have these three different representations of the album as well.”
After spending the better part of the year touring with a full band, Wolfe’s final shows of the year will be more reflective of not just her Unbound EP, but also a recent Tiny Desk Concert she performed at for NPR. More personally for Wolfe, these will be her first shows in Philly fully sober.
“It’s definitely been an interesting thing to learn how to play a show completely sober and now, it’s like it’s not a big deal at all,” Wolfe said. “I think probably the first few shows that I played sober were most important for me to kind of get over that hill of feeling just 100% exposed and having to learn how to dig up that sort of energy and confidence from within myself instead of having a drink or something to sort of loosen up.”
Saturday and Monday’s shows will feature stripped-down performances of Wolfe’s work with her guitar and vocal effects, and will serve as a “journey” of songs from her first album to the present day. As for what’s next, Wolfe said she’s in an “experimental phase” and is looking to find the next fit of producers and writers.
“I’m really excited about just getting into different studios and writing and focusing on songwriting first and foremost, instead of just diving into like, ‘OK, I want it to be this genre or this sound,’ ” Wolfe said. “I’m just really focusing on the songs themselves.”
Tickets for Wolfe’s performances at First Unitarian Church start at $37.50. Enhancement will provide support for both shows.
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