Princess Chelsea - No Church On Sunday



Original, quirky and a little bit world famous, Princess Chelsea has intrigued me for some time. "The Cigarette Duet" is one of those phenomena of the interwebs, with over 18 million views (no, not a misprint) of a video that pretty much anyone can enjoy for its minor subversion.  Bringing a sort of alt-nursery-rhyme (watch me destroy the English language) angle to New Zealand music, Chelsea Nikkel's art is a little ironic, sometimes acerbic but also playful and optimistic. There is maybe something of the Galactic Alliance here (if the Greens had put together a successful campaign in the Senate). In the interview linked below, Chelsea mentions someone describing the video for "No Church On Sunday" as "retro-futuristic". I think that encapsulates Princess Chelsea. And this is a much-loved artist. Most NZ musicians/bands I post on have maybe 10,000-20,000 Facebook followers if they are doing well. Princess Chelsea has over 60,000. There is something going on here. "No Church on Sunday" is from the forthcoming album "The Great Cybernetic Depression" which Chelsea says is "a more consistent sound than my first album, Lil' Golden Book, which had quite a varied palette." There is clearly lots of '80s timbre to come...in Chelsea's words, the album being "absolutely covered in Yamaha DX7s and Roland D50 Fantasy Bells with a huge snare." The "No Church on Sunday" video was directed by NZ's own video-Dali, Simon Ward, who was apparently channelling a video from early 90s female duo Shakespear's Sister. I assume "Stay", in which case I think it moves beyond that pretty easily. You can read more about Princess Chelsea and the new album at the very good Catalogue interview link posted below. You can also buy her choones at the Lil' Chief link. They do make a habit of sneaking up on one...

http://princesschelsea.lilchiefrecords.com/

https://www.cataloguemagazine.com.au/feature/princess-chelsea-talks-17-million-youtube-views-and-her-favourite-love-songs

Princess Chelsea - No Church On Sunday

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