15.

Chelsea Wolfe

She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She

Chelsea Wolfe is an artist who I had only a superficial familiarity with prior to 2024. Her seventh record certainly had me taking notice, though: it’s an impressive, hugely ambitious affair. Lyrically, She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She is primarily focused on addiction; Wolfe takes the confronting approach of highlighting the downsides of sobriety rather than of insobriety. All quite dark stuff, and worlds away from ‘girl meets boy’. Musically, the album features a strong undercurrent of trip hop, which was my route into it. Marta’s 2023 List-topper has got me digging into what’s going on in the genre more than I have in years, but this is probably the closest thing to a ‘trip hop record’ on this year’s List. It’s also, well, not a ‘trip hop record’, at least not in the traditional sense. Wolfe blends that genre’s ambient beats with darkwave electronica and gothic rock (as well as adding occasional touches of metal – a sandpit she has played in before). The result is something well beyond trip hop, which is sonically challenging and occasionally disconcerting. Along with another record (which shall stay unnamed for now…), She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She somewhat defined the first quarter of 2024 for me – I was playing it on constant rotation in March. I was a little surprised to find, therefore, when I started to put The List together that it had tumbled down the rankings this far in the subsequent 8 months. It’s nonetheless a fantastic record, and one that I suspect may stick with me longer than many of the records that I have placed above it. NB: worth flagging the EP that Wolfe released in November, entitled Unbound, which features reworked acoustic versions of four tracks from She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She (as well as one cover) – also fantastic.