Chelsea Wolfe will release her new album Birth Of Violence on September 13, and the new single "American Darkness" is a slow-burning look into the Tarot deck. It's also a pretty creepy song with a lot of subtleties that's best heard on headphones.
"It began as a sort of homage to a scene in the Paul Thomas Anderson film Magnolia, where the characters are singing along to the Aimee Mann song “Wise Up,” but I wanted our version to be explored through the lens of The Tarot. I’ve been reading tarot cards for myself for many years, and researching the symbolic expressions of the cards for this video made me want to dive even deeper. To represent that, I played both The Fool and The High Priestess cards in the video, to embody both the beginning of the journey, and the realization that the sacred knowledge I was seeking was inside me all along. We cast friends to play a few other tarot archetypes, and Karlos’ idea was to bring the symbols and signifiers into the contemporary; deconstructed, and made everyday – “the magical and the unexceptional.” I loved that. At the same time, we really wanted to challenge the binary of the traditional tarot cards, and give them more diversity, which is something important that many cool artists and witches are doing. I’m such a fan of Karlos Rene Ayala as a writer, director, documentarian and friend, and have looked forward to making a video with him for a long time.”
Wolfe will embark on an acoustic tour with Ioanna Gika this October. Get the dates below and pre-order the album here.
08/31: Pasadena, CA – Pasadena Daydream Festival (Non-acoustic Set)
10/18: San Diego, CA – Observatory North Park
10/19: Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
10/21: Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall
10/22: Estes Park, CO – Stanley Hotel
10/24: Chicago, IL – Metro
10/25: Detroit, MI – Senate Theater
10/26: Toronto, ONT – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
10/27: Montreal, QC – Le National
10/29: Boston, MA – Royale
10/31: Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
11/01: New York, NY – Brooklyn Steel
11/03: Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
11/04: Charlotte, NC – McGlohon Theater
11/05: Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
11/06: Nashville, TN – Mercy Lounge
11/08: Dallas, TX – Texas Theatre
11/09: Austin, TX – Levitation
11/10: Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall
11/12: Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
11/13: Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
11/15: Los Angeles, CA – The Palace Theatre
11/16: San Francisco, CA – Regency Ballroom
11/18: Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
11/20: Seattle, WA – The Showbox
11/21: Vancouver, BC – Vogue Theatre
