We’re excited to present this week’s episode of Room 205 featuring Chelsea Wolfe. After filming more than 30 episodes and 90 videos in a tiny 15×20-foot rehearsal space, we put our heads together with friend and longtime MFNW producer Trevor Solomon to curate “Room 205 Live” held at venerable downtown venue Ted’s, (formerly Berbati’s Pan) during this year’s MusicfestNW. The night featured some of our favorite Room 205 collaborators, including Chelsea Wolfe, Craft Spells, Crystal Antlers, Tropic of Cancer and Blouse. In this episode, Chelsea Wolfe performs “Noorus,” a track from her first LP, The Grime and The Glow.

Northern California native Chelsea Wolfe’s sound is best described with broad juxtaposing strokes: elemental and intense, ancient yet modern, radiant, dark, intimate and expansive. Hues of black metal and deep blues inform her ever-evolving electric folk. Wolfe’s voice haunts and soothes, revealing the unlikely truths and beauty hidden in life’s darker corners. Whether stripped bare or fully backed, Wolfe and company carry a serious heaviness of sound offset by that ever-present counterweight: transcendence of spirit.

In her final Room 205 performance, Chelsea Wolfe engulfs Room 205 with fire-laden performance of “Demons.”

In her final Room 205 performance, Chelsea Wolfe engulfs Room 205 with fire-laden performance of “Demons.”

Special thanks goes to Chelsea and her bandmates, Dylan Fujioka (drums), Ben Chisholm (keys), and Kevin Dockter (guitar), for making this episode of Room 205 possible. Without their good grace, great songs and willingness to get weird we couldn’t have made it happen. Thanks also to director Michael Reich, set designer Tamarra Younis, audio engineer J. Clark, DP Jeffrey Peters, and editor Forrest Borie.

Don’t forget to check out all videos of Chelsea Wolfe and past visiting artists in Room 205. All tracks recorded in Room 205 are available for streaming through SoundCloud.

In her second Room 205 installment, Chelsea Wolfe delivers a heavy and brooding performance of “Pale on Pale” from the 2011 album Apokalypsis.

In her second Room 205 installment, Chelsea Wolfe delivers a heavy and brooding performance of “Pale on Pale” from the 2011 album Apokalypsis.

California native Chelsea Wolfe has always embodied both the darkness and the light. Although her music is a raw strain of electric folk tinted by black metal and deep blues, it never wallows in despair. Instead, it wraps itself like a cloak around the human experience, encouraging uplift and seeking triumph. Her voice is a haunting call, warm and lingering, and her lyrics acknowledge life’s obscure and melancholy moments in service to the unlikely truths and beauty they so often reveal.

Embrace the doom and immerse yourself in Chelsea Wolfe’s “Pale on Pale.

To enjoy this truly spellbinding Room 205 performance of “Movie Screen” by Chelsea Wolfe, we suggest you turn down the lights, don headphones, relax and get yourself into a gloomy Portishead-meets-Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein state of mind.

For our first episode of the 2012 Room 205 season, seer/director Michael Reich, wizard/editor Forrest Borie, and white witch/set designer Tamarra Younis tapped their deepest inner goth vibes to film doom folk artist Chelsea Wolfe.

California native Chelsea Wolfe has always embodied both the darkness and the light. Yet though her music is a raw strain of electric folk tinted by black metal and deep blues, it never wallows in despair. Instead, it wraps itself like a thick cloak around the human experience, encouraging uplift, seeking triumph. It makes sense then that her influences run from Nick Cave and Selda Bagcan, to directors as varied as Ingmar Bergman and John Waters, with nods to the dramatic flair of Antony Hegarty and Patti Smith.

To enjoy this truly spellbinding performance of “Movie Screen,” we suggest you turn down the lights, don headphones, relax and get yourself into a gloomy Portishead-meets-Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein state of mind.