Chelsea Wolfe and Ben Chisholm come together on this track “Valerian,” from Jesse Draxler‘s upcoming A/V project Reigning Cement due out September 4th via Federal Prisoner. For the project, the Los Angeles-based artist provided a hand-picked collection of musicians with the same packet of 34 sound elements to be arranged by each as they saw fit with the potential to add vocals if desired. The 22-track collection is paired with a 100-page book of the artist’s location-specific photography and collage work.
With all the sounds and images collected around Draxler’s LA studio, he explains:
“I grew up in rural Wisconsin, so when I moved here I noticed all the textures and noises that are such a big part of this environment—the construction sounds, garbage trucks, jackhammers, alarms. Stuff that you would just consider noise. It’s so densely industrial over here that it became something that grated on my nerves but at the same time was super inspiring.”
“Valerian” is the third single from Reigning Cement. Discussing the song and video, Draxler has this to say:
“When submitting this track, Chelsea briefly mentioned how the lyrics are an ode to her relationship with Valerian root and its effects on sleeping habits and insomnia. With the video we wanted to echo this notion to create a morphing and echoing sleep-scape, straddling the line between dream and nightmare. The video was created by myself and Rizz (of the band VOWWS), while the footage of Chelsea was kindly given to us by herself.”
