Chelsea Wolfe is “back, and masterful as ever” (Revolver). Today, Wolfe announces her new album, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She, out February 9th on Loma Vista, and presents its new single/video “Whispers in the Echo Chamber.” Wolfe’s seventh studio album is a rebirth in process. It’s a powerfully cathartic statement about cutting ties and an important reminder that healing is cyclical, not a simple linear process. As Wolfe explains, “It’s a record about the past self reaching out to the present self reaching out to the future self to summon change, growth, and guidance. It’s a story of freeing yourself from situations and patterns that are holding you back in order to become self-empowered. It’s an invitation to step into your authenticity.”
Hailed by Guitar World as “the queen of gothic industrial guitar,” Wolfe has never been afraid to traverse genre or invent her own hybrids. She wrote and workshopped She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She with her longtime collaborators, multi-instrumentalist Ben Chisholm, drummer Jess Gowrie, and guitarist Bryan Tulao, before bringing them to producer Dave Andrew Sitek in early 2022. Together, they deconstructed the compositions, pushing the songs into uncharted waters where they were then transformed and reborn. The pieces found their final focus with Shawn Everett (The War On Drugs, SZA, Yeah Yeah Yeahs) who mixed the album, extracting the fine details from the vocals and blending them into the lush sonic production world where heavy guitars dissolve into trip-hop breaks and hushed vocals soar before final mastering by renowned engineer Heba Kadry.
Following lead single, “Dusk,” “Whispers in the Echo Chamber” ties together a number of elements Wolfe has explored in the past, rolling in dynamic waves between minimal synth and heavy, full-band moments. The swirling vocal textures of the song — run through Sitek’s modular wall — are meant to reflect those persistent intuitive voices that start rising up within you when it’s time to step out of the old and into the new. As Wolfe sings in the blistering track, she’s “twisting the old self into poetry” and “bathing in the blood of who [she] used to be.”
The “Whispers in the Echo Chamber” accompanying video was directed by George Gallardo Kattah and filmed in Colombia. Wolfe explains, “It feels like a love story between myself and my sleep paralysis entity, who, for the sake of this video, represents a calm inner voice cutting through mental chatter and anxiety to help guide me towards a more authentic path. From the inward to the outward, this entity shows me the expansiveness of new possibilities, if only I’ll take the first difficult steps.”
At its core, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She is realizing the way forward is through, contemplating what must be left behind, while also figuring out what lies ahead and what there is to discover once you get there. Wolfe guides us on that quest, asking us these questions as she asks herself the same. As the album title hints, She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She is a reminder to look within, to remember that all the power you need resides there. Reach out to the selves, reach out to one another. Reach to the ancient and to the end of all things, to remember that the only time we truly have is now.
She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She
Out February 9th via Loma Vista Recordings
