In what feels like a match made in goth/dark folk hell, Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle have released a collaborative single, "Anhedonia," out now on Sargent House. It's a haunting, bare-bones track, and it should come as no surprise that Chelsea and Emma's soaring voices sound incredible together. Chelsea says:

I wrote "Anhedonia" after I experienced it during summer of 2019, then tucked the song away and moved forward with my acoustic album and subsequent North American tour. When COVID-19 hit and stay-at-home orders began in 2020, my European tour was canceled and I had to fly home. Restless, I started listening through my archives of unfinished songs and little unused ideas. When I heard Anhedonia again, it hit me how strangely relevant the lyrics felt to current times. I’d been wanting to work on a song with Emma for a long time, so I recorded it and sent it her way. She graciously added her gorgeous vocals and lead guitar, and then Ben mixed it, adding his signature sound landscape as a fortress around the song. As I listened back to the final version, I was finally able to set free those emotions which I couldn’t feel back in 2019. I had worries around releasing the song, not wanting to romanticize the condition of anhedonia (the inability to feel pleasure), but I also understood that it could possibly be cathartic for others who are struggling, as it was for me, to sing and dance my way out of a depression.

Emma adds, "I was moved to tears when she sent me Anhedonia, which made getting through the tracking very emotional and slow on my end. I love the way the guitars I tracked morphed in Ben's mix. The whole song swirls in a poignant eddy of sorrowful sound and still takes a hard swing at my heart hearing it now."

Listen below.

Last year, Chelsea released the debut album by her new project with Jess Gowrie, Mrs. Piss. She's also one of the guests on Xiu Xiu's just-announced duets album.

Emma released a collaborative album with Thou last year (one of our favorite metal albums of 2020), and they followed it with a new EP earlier this month.

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