A match made in heaven: Chelsea Wolfe & Emma Ruth Rundle on 'Anhedonia'

Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle finally team up on new collab, 'Anhedonia.' 

Anhedonia refers to the "inability to feel pleasure in normally pleasurable activities," and is often a by-product of depression. It's really not a stretch of the imagination that such a thing was felt hard by not only Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle, but any other touring artist and band who depends on live shows for their livelihood when the world closed up shop last March amidst the grip of Covid-19. But as an endless array of examples from music artists over the last 11 months have shown us, from lockdowns is born collaboration and creativity. People may be physically separated, but their art, their voices, are not.

So here we have two great artists, two great voices, who share a lot of the same genre and scene territory, as well as the same label (Sargent House), collaborating together at last. And it's as good as fans would've guessed. Originally an unused B-side from Chelsea's last record, the wonderfully gloomy acoustic foray of 2019's 'Birth Of Violence', this collab came once Covid-19 became a global pandemic, restrictions flew up, and the live music industry was left for dead.

It's a simple story. Chelsea originally sent the song over to Emma so she could add her own touch if guitars and vocals, helping to flesh out the song's theme of isolation, karma and losing yourself and the price that carries, and then the rest was history. It's fitting that a song about losing your love for your passions, about pushing people away, is actually a collaborative piece. Something that Chelsea doesn't often do with other singers. (Unless your Deafheaven.)

Chelsea leads the piece, which isn't surprising as it was her own song to begin with, but soon the pair's plectrums and cool singing interweave over one another, and it's a most beautiful result! The kind that most fans of Chelsea and Emma would have already prophesized in their own heads. It's a match made in folky, ghostly heaven. And shit, such an inviting and intimate song like 'Anhedonia' might just make you feel something. It did so for me.