Having premiered on NOISEY/Vice just yesterday, Princess Chelsea shares a karaoke-style music video for her striking cover of Disasteradio‘s unreleased track, ‘Aftertouch’. The song became the title track for her recently-released covers album, out now on Lil Chief Records. It’s is a banger of a track, with Chelsea playing post-modern Madonna to Disasteradio’s nostalgic disco-synths.
Watch the video below, created by Simon Ward and Luke Rowell (Disasteradio), who had this to say about Princess Chelsea’s take on his song:
“After mentioning she liked my tune Aftertouch after seeing it live, I got stuck on this idea that it would be a great fit for Chelsea’s voice. Also I have always loved the she mixes fiction with pop music and the song is very much along those lines. I remember getting chills hearing it in her voice for the first time, right from my gmail. Her treatment gives the song a really great melodrama and timeless pop energy, I love it so much!”
Aftertouch is a collection of covers by Princess Chelsea, recorded between 2010-2016, featuring songs by local artists including Lawrence Arabia, Disasteradio, Marianne Faithfull, Lucinda Williams, Nirvana, and of course Elvis Presley. Chelsea uses covers as a way to experiment with production and arrangement ideas in between albums, and Aftertouch is a curious invitation to hear the development of a musical palette over five years.
Die-hard fans may notice that early covers (‘And I Love Her’, 2010) present building blocks for ideas used in later recordings of original material (‘Goodnight Little Robot Child’ from Lil’ Golden Book, 2011).
Jonathan Bree (Lil’ Chief’s Chief/ The Brunettes) has lent a hand on production for nearly all of these tracks – Nikkel and Bree seem to have fine-tuned their working chemistry after two albums together. Earlier self produced tracks like ‘And I Love Her’ and ‘Come As You Are’ may not have the sonic fine-tuning of Bree’s magic wand but still posses a naive charm.
Chelsea says:
“The ‘Princess Chelsea’ sound is something I’ve spent years developing and is heavily based on arrangement. I’ve spent hundreds of hours fine tuning an instrumental palette and one of the ways I do that is by recording covers of my favourite songs. The common theme amongst all these songs is quite simply good songwriting – I always cover songs that move me emotionally and hope that the songwriting might rub off on me a little bit. Those nearer to my age group will hopefully be as moved by an Interpol cover as most people should be by the most beautiful song in the world ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’.”
Hi-Res album art and press shots can be found here:
http:///www.lilchiefrecords.com/epk/princess-chelsea
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Tracklisting (with original recording artist/year Princess Chelsea recorded it below): 1. Next Exit (Interpol) recorded 2016 2. Come As you Are (Nirvana) recorded 2013 3. Can’t Help Falling In Love (Elvis Presley) recorded 2015 4. Morning Sun (Marianne Faithfull) recorded 2016 5. Side of The Road (Lucinda Williams) recorded 2016 6. And I Love Her (The Beatles) recorded 2010 7. Aftertouch (Disasteradio) recorded 2016 8. Cold Glass Tube (Reduction Agents) recorded 2016 9. After The Moment (Craft Spells) recorded 2011
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Critic’s praise for Princess Chelsea:
“When it comes to songs by others – which she morphs into her own dreamily ornate synth-pop atmospherics – she can sure pick ’em: Marianne Faithfull’s Morning Sun from the mid Sixties is given a gentle chug-pop Eighties treatment with the adult-cum-innocent Elizabethan bitter-sweet romance of the original intact; Cobain’s Come As You Are enjoys a similarly Chelsea make-over with the overwrought emotions stripped out for a more distant poise in her delivery…” – Elsewhere
“Poignant, solitary and universal.” – The Sampler, Radio New Zealand National
“Beautifully fragile and layered pieces of electronic music that add as much impact as the words they support.” – The New Zealand Listener
Find Princess Chelsea online:
