Stream: Chelsea Wolfe, ‘The Mother Road’

S.Lo on June 20th, 2019

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To speak of birth is to speak of beginnings, painful and sublime. Craftswoman of electric darkness Chelsea Wolfe is no stranger to mining and drawing forth landscapes of pain. In her upcoming album, she goes further to explore origins. The first single for her upcoming seventh album, “Birth of Violence,” out Sept. 13 via Sargent House, is “The Mother Road.”

“I offer these songs like flowers in violent bloom, and I look forward to sharing more with you this summer,” Wolfe penned in a letter to fans. In the vein of flowers, of course of the black orchid variety, “The Mother Road” comes from a more organic darkness than recent albums, with listeners able to put their ear against what is usually the gestation phase of Wolfe’s songs, developing fully while remaining acoustic. There is still electricity, it’s emanating now more vibrantly from Wolfe’s songwriting as she explores her relationship to motherhood, “… goddess flesh … I want to learn to swallow my pain … afraid to live, afraid to die … I do not have a child / but I’m old enough to know some pain / and I’m hellbent on loving you … guess I needed someone to break me / guess I needed someone to shake me out.” There’s a tension in the decision to submit. In the end, it’s submission to her own rebirth as she ends in command, “bloom and eclipse them, wake up and transform,” pushing herself out of her cocoon.

Ben Chisholm resumes production duties, recording the songs in Wolfe’s home studio and providing atmospheric flourishes along with drummer Jess Gowrie and violist Ezra Buchla (while guitarist Bryan Tulao with wife Karina Vega Tulao may have provided inspiration).

Says Wolfe, “I’ve been in a state of constant motion for the past eight years or so; touring, moving, playing new stages, exploring new places and meeting new people-an incredible time of learning and growing as a musician and performer. But after a while, I was beginning to lose a part of myself. I needed to take some time away from the road to get my head straight, to learn to take better care of myself, and to write and record as much as I can while I have ‘Mercury in my hands,’ as a wise friend put it.”

For her upcoming “American Darkness Tour” through the U.S. and Canada, Wolfe will be trading in her electric ax for an acoustic for even her classic tracks. She gave a taste of this in a recent tribute to Roky Erickson, letting go of the need for polished perfection.

||| Stream: “The Mother Road”

||| Live: Chelsea Wolfe will play the Cure-ated Pasadena Daydream Festival on Aug. 31 (tickets) and the Palace Theatre on Nov. 15 with Ioanna Gika opening (tickets go on sale Friday at 9 a.m.).

||| Also: Watch the video for “Night of the Vampire” (Roky Erickson cover)