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Sep 21, 2021 By Joey Arnone Photography by Ben Chisholm

Chelsea Wolfe has shared two newly-released songs, “Green Altar” and a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock.” The two songs were recorded during the sessions for Wolfe’s previous album, Birth of Violence. Wolfe has also shared a new documentary chronicling her 2019 tour for the album, which was cut short due to the pandemic. Listen to the two new songs and watch the Bobby Cochran-directed documentary below.

Wolfe speaks about the songs in a press release: “While preparing for the Birth of Violence tour, I was watching a lot of Joni Mitchell videos. A 1966 Canadian performance that I found of hers ended up inspiring the video for my song ‘Highway.’ One night after working on the live set, Ben [Chisholm] and I were hanging out and I was just letting the Joni videos roll. ‘Woodstock’ came on and I started singing along. After that I simply asked Ben if he’d be into covering it with me for the tour, and we just went back into the studio and started working it out. The cover came together quite naturally and it was a treat to play on stage every night. Joni is obviously such a big inspiration to this side of my music, so it felt right to pay tribute to her.”

“‘Green Altar’ is a cherished song that unfortunately didn’t make it onto the album. It’s a love song I wrote after finding out that my dear friends (artist) Bill Crisafi and (designer) Hogan McLaughlin were engaged. I envisioned them getting married in a lush, green outdoor space outside of some majestic castle ruins.”

She adds, regarding the documentary: “It’s not my natural inclination to want cameras around when I’m in my head or doing vocal warmups before a show, or when I’m with friends or family backstage, but Bobby asked, and in the spirit of pushing myself to document that era of my musical life, I welcomed him along. Then, after the COVID-19 pandemic hit and I had to fly home from the European acoustic tour before I got to play a single show of it, I was so grateful that he had this footage and was putting it together. I wanted to share this documentary for that reason as well, for those who had tickets to cancelled shows (I love you!), and as a sort of wave goodbye to the time I spent focused on Birth of Violence, as I’m now making plans for and in the headspace of the next new album.”

Earlier this year, Wolfe shared the song “Diana,” which was one of our Songs of the Week. Birth of Violence came out in 2019 via Sargent House.

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