Princess Chelsea

Lil’ Golden Book is a delicious concoction of child-like sweetness and adult irony that sparkles from start to finish.

Coming from Lil’ Chief records, the label who brought you The Brunettes and The Gladeyes amongst others, it is not a surprise that Princess Chelsea’s debut album is not your typical pop record. Employing an array of old-fashioned instruments and percussion equipment as well as electronic sounds, Princess Chelsea presents a collection of eleven songs to counter the annoying sameness of the American pop factory.

Although often set to simple and warmly charming melodies recalling children’s music, the content of these songs is anything but childish, with instant classic The Cigarette Duet (sung with Jonathan Bree of The Brunettes) debating whether or not to smoke a cigarette that you know is bad for you over xylophones and its companion piece Too Fast To Live warning against the effects of excessive alcohol consumption on one’s organs.

The absolute standout on the album is the beautiful and haunting Ice Reign combining dark allusions to Alice in Wonderland with a playful, enticing melody. The piano-driven Monkey Eats Bananas is also a delightful piece of pop mania.

On Overseas, living in New Zealand is described as “pleasant enough” but “not enough”. The song details the migration of youth to other bigger countries where they find that they are not in fact happier. Princess Chelsea will undoubtedly find success overseas (music this unique and intriguing cannot fail to find an audience) but here’s hoping that she will return often to her homeland and be welcomed as the national treasure that she is.



Read more: http://www.undertheradar.co.nz/utr/review/CID/551/N/Lil-Golden-Book.utr#ixzz1cF9wYLeq - Under The Radar

New Zealand’s Chelsea Nikkel—better known as Princess Chelsea—has just released her debut album, Lil’ Golden Book (Lil’ Chief). First single “The Cigarette Duet,” featuring Jonathan Bree of the Brunettes, has a ’60s pop feel with lyrics about smoking. Download the track below, and catch Princess Chelsea on tour this fall. - Magnet Magazine

This week I started listening to an artist named Princess Chelsea. I'm a particular fan of this song, which sounds very circus-y/Tim Burton-esque. - USA Today

I began collecting vinyl when I was 17 years old and just starting to get excited about listening to music. I dropped out of high school and got a job at Marbecks Record Store in Auckland, New Zealand. At the time Marbecks was a specialty, family-owned business and it employed very few staff members, most of whom had been working there for a very long time and who were all extremely well schooled in their preferred genre of music. One staff member had over 20 YES t-shirts.


I remember fondly being given records by senior members of staff who took it upon themselves to school me up on Patsy Cline, Neil Young, and all their favorite obscure English bands from the mid eighties.

I continued to buy records from that point onwards and would shop at Real Groovy Records in Auckland where I could pick up Byrds, Beatles, and Beach Boys LPs for $5. I would mainly buy second hand and older titles as they were very inexpensive and this led to my exploring the history of pop, country, and rock n’ roll through the LP format.

Now that I am older I still enjoy listening to music but that excitement of discovering an artist like Neil Young for the first time is something really special and I think I associate this feeling in particular with LPs.

I never would have thought back then that I would be releasing my own album on vinyl, but Lil’ Golden Book (my first album) is in the process of being pressed on gold vinyl and will be available on Lil’ Chief Records soon. - The Vinyl District

Including the title “princess” in the name of a dreamy, smart-mouthed psych-folk songstress runs the risk of being too perfectly fairytale-ish and quirky—unless the name was bestowed by the artist’s former “circus punk” bandmates during a rowdy and sloppy tour. Princess Chelsea, so named by the members of the New Zealand punk-weirdo troupe Teenwolf she used to play with, has taken her tongue-and-cheek title from scream-y to quirky with the release of her debut solo album Lil’ Golden Book in May. Drawing on her experience performing with Teenwolf and fellow New Zealanders the Brunettes, not to mention a background in classical music and a brain full of sentient memories, Princess Chelsea has composed a collection of chimerical and often ambient indie pop songs recorded in her bedroom.


While Princess Chelsea’s work tends to have a light, delicate quality to its sound, her songs are not devoid of gloomier moods. Her dark moments add a macabre quality to songs that spin memories into half-fairytales with simple, straightforward lyrics and ethereal melodies. She uses a laundry list of instruments to compose layered soundscapes—her four-piece live band, whom she refers to as Princess Chelsea And Her Best Friends, plays drums, guitar, bass, four keyboards, two glockenspiels, a xylophone, violin and a harmonica.


Lil’ Golden Book is wholly a product of Princess Chelsea’s native island country; it focuses on her recollections of growing up in New Zealand and features other local musicians. The result is an expressive blend of a fascination with the mundane and a taste for the fantastical that has taken the ex-circus punk freak to new folk territory. - CMJ

Over three years in the making, New Zealand’s Lil’ Chief Records is proud to present the debut album by Princess Chelsea, the stage persona of composer Chelsea Nikkel. Lil’ Golden Book is the first collection of what her label describes as “the soundtrack to an old Disney movie meeting Kraftwerk fronted by Enya in a 60’s production of ‘Les Miserables’ set in space.”

More to the point, Lil’ Golden Book is full of stories about growing up in modern New Zealand. Everyday situations surrounding drinking, the Internet, and petty jealousies are presented as some kind of bizarre layman’s fairy-tale. The juxtaposition of Princess Chelsea’s lush, orchestral arrangements and the sardonic wit of her lyrics make for an intriguing listen. - The Pop Stereo

Over three years in the making, New Zealand’s Lil’ Chief Records is proud to present the debut album by Princess Chelsea, the stage persona of composer Chelsea Nikkel. Lil’ Golden Book is the first collection of what her label describes as “the soundtrack to an old Disney movie meeting Kraftwerk fronted by Enya in a 60’s production of ‘Les Miserables’ set in space.”

More to the point, Lil’ Golden Book is full of stories about growing up in modern New Zealand. Everyday situations surrounding drinking, the Internet, and petty jealousies are presented as some kind of bizarre layman’s fairy-tale. The juxtaposition of Princess Chelsea’s lush, orchestral arrangements and the sardonic wit of her lyrics make for an intriguing listen. - The Pop Stereo

Auckland, New Zealand
Once Upon A Time, Princess Chelsea Scared Your Children
Once Upon A Time, Princess Chelsea Scared Your Children
Psych Pop Bedtime Stories
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By Halley Bondy
August 9, 2011

Move over 8bit video game revivalism — Disney is the new kid in electro-nerd town.

Auckland’s Princess Chelsea is hearkening pre-Pixar animation, when the bad guys were actually scary as hell (do you remember Ursula or Jafar acting like harmless CG buffoons? NO!). Her debut album Lil’ Golden Book is filled with eerie electro and chamber pop tracks with twisted, twinkling fairy tale vibes. Instrumental anti-lullabies flow seamlessly into the tracks that have quirky, understated lyrics about monkeys and bananas, and ironic(?) or not(?) messages against smoking and drinking.

Within all the shoegaze and twinkling lies the standout track “Cigarette Duet,” where Human League meets Best Coast at a freaky carnival. The lyrics are an honest and all-too-realistic couples’ conversation about cigarettes. Hate to say it, but the dude is right on this one. Although, in the video, both of them utterly fail to save the drowning electric guitar. Now that’s a dealbreaker. - MTV Iggy

I love this new deadpan music video for “Cigarette Duet” by creepy/cute New Zealanders, Princess Chelsea.

Listen to it just once, and you’ll have a very hard time getting this catchy, witty number out of your head. Taken from their debut album, Lil’ Golden Book, which their label Lil’ Chief describe as “the soundtrack to an old Disney movie meets Kraftwerk fronted by Enya in a 60s production of Les Mis… set in space.

Order a copy of Lil’ Golden Book from Lil’ Chief Records. - Dangerous Minds

The cover of Lil' Golden Book is a homage to the popular children's book series and at least one track Monkey Eats Bananas would fit snugly on an album by kiwi children's band Fatcat and Fishface. But Auckland based Princess Chelsea, who plays Mighty Mighty in Wellington on May 14, is anything but a neophyte. She's worked with the Brunettes and Teenwolf and cites our own Annabel Alpers (Bachelorette) and Kate Bush as influences. The result is an endearing mix of left-field pop with an almost subversive faux gentleness to many of the keyboard-based songs. There's a lovely bedroom-studio sparseness to the recording, although the production is deceptively complex - just lie back and enjoy the strings on the carnival like - Ice Reign. Chelsea charms, whether she swoons on the haunting Machines of Loving Grace or with Jonathan Bree - doing his best Lee Hazlewood - on Cigarette Duet and with Lawrence Arabia on the smart Overseas. And just when the pattern could get formulaic, there's the atmospheric turns of Goodnight Little Robot Child, which made me want to immediately hear another disc. An exquisite debut. **** - The Dominion Post

Princess Chelsea’s light, airy voice delivers cautionary tales, given sinister sheen by the fairground sound of up-and-down piano chords, and even the occasional 3/4 time signature (so underused these days!). The lyrics largely concern everyday experiences and emotions, refracted through a splintered glass. Take ‘Ice Reign’, which refers to the “online wars” people engage in – with a lack of courtesy resulting in the command “off with your head”, Red Queen-styles.

Considerable musicality is demonstrated – ‘Monkey Eats Bananas’, brief on lyrics, makes stars of the glockenspiel’s twinkle and aforementioned piano chords. Opening track ‘Machines of Loving Grace’ achieves a similarly flickering, glinting sound. Despite calling to mind “only the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate,” I think it’s beautiful, from the climbing opening melody to the looping, briskly percussive ending. The slightly cracked voice when she says “you’ll only end up like your dad” and compellingly applicable lines like “you spend your time online being somewhat of a star” help keep it, well, real. Only ‘Yulia’, with its tone somewhere between withering and bemused, fails to appeal. The album avoids any sense of wallowing in nostalgia for its own sake. Instead, the subversion of the familiar in its fairytale packaging gives further context to the shades of light and dark in the stories found within Lil’ Golden Book. However, if you do want to wallow – just a bit – you can carefully inscribe your name in the “belongs to” line that waits for you on the inside front cover. [A] - The Corner

Auckland artist Princess Chelsea may be inspired by the ethereal, rousing Disney soundtracks from her childhood, but she evokes much more than quirky, cutesy innocence on this debut album. While her love of classical greats - Schubert in particular - trills through the intricate orchestral moments of the album, the themes are embedded in deep, twisted quarter-life angst.

Frack, her chilling, mostly instrumental attempt at the end of the world, actually sounds like it could be just that. Elsewhere she weaves between angelic vocals and acerbic wit, making poignant statements in songs like Yulia, and Overseas, that earn the album a patriotic salute.

Stars: 4/5 - NZ Herald

Cleverly packaged to replicate a Little Golden Book (but with appropriately dark illustrations), this album by Chelsea Nikkel (with Jonathan Bree formerly of the Brunettes co-producing) walks a narrow line between twee sounding childlike pop and those more menacing undertones found in children's stories like the Grimms' fairytales.

So here you have Ice Reign which warns that people can be mean (wars and online) "so start being civil, courteous too or it will be off with your head".

There is also this: "Life in New Zealand is pleasant enough, when we turn 22 it's not violent enough, we want fast pace and fast trains and much bigger clubs, we want money and kudos and much stronger drugs . . ." So we go overseas where we do the same things with not much space of the subways and come home two years later "with a sigh of relief, but we say it was better".

This is clever and clear writing. There are warnings about drinking too much "or you'll only end up like your dad" (a deftly "orchestrated" piece), and the Cigarette Duet (with Bree) is a him-and-her discussion over the health risk. Sort of Nancy and Lee without the innuendo and metaphors.

By the lyrics and messages being kept simple, they perfectly match the cute music which most often sounds like it has come from a nursery (Monkey Eats Banana).

Amidst the more general cruelness and truth-speaking ("You could be something great, but something great is nothing new" and "You will die and cannot save your life") is a more direct swipe at the former popera star Yulia who has married an older man/her manager which lifts a line from the Exponents' Victoria ("what do you see in him?").

And the opening of Frack cleverly suggests a childlike version of Springsteen's Philadelphia.

So this clever, barbed, tart and avoids the tweeness of its surfaces by being so mischievous and sharp. It does feel a little long at fortysomething minutes, but it I doubt it is intended to be listened to in a single sitting.

Dip and dive. This is enjoyably sweet'n'sour. - Graham Reid, www.elsewhere.co.nz

The fantasy of Lil' Golden Book has materialised into a strong record. Musically it's an original amalgamation of electronic, classical and pop elements with Nikkel citing Disney soundtracks and musicals as inspiration.

On first listen, she comes across as an ideas-based artist, stacking parts on top of each other with more zeal for musical intrigue than conventional song craft and lyricism, something Nikkel will attest to.

But musings on the love life of a local songstress (Yulia), the New Zealand OE via Les Miserables anthem (Overseas) and the please-stop-drinking-so-much ballad "Too Fast To Live" betray a burgeoning lyrical wit. The latter calls in strings and three quarter balladry to persuade its recipient to ease up on the booze. It closes with Nikkel bittersweetly signing off "you'll only end up like your dad", in the process kicking just as hard as any of the arrangements. That kind of cadence isn't exactly the happy ending of the children's books, but this Lil' Golden Book sounds pretty magical all the same.

- Groove Guide

Princess Chelsea's debut album has hints of bedtime fairytales and rousing 1940s Disney soundtracks. - New Zealand Herald

Single of the year: Princess Chelsea - 'Monkey Eats Bananas'

My criteria for this award isn't necessarily a song that gets released as a single, after all what does that mean these days, but a song that reaches out and grabs you, sticks in your head and is undeniably catchy. In May this year Real groove magazine issued a CD of up and coming kiwi acts to mark NZ Music Month. For weeks after I drove everyone in my house made playing one song again and again, and I still love it now. Monkey Eats Bananas by Princess Chelsea is silly but incredibly compelling. Xylophone, electric piano, a nonsense lyric that doesn't kick in until two thirds of the way through the song, all atop a great rolling bass line. Brilliant.
- Counting The Beat

New Zealand electro chanteuse turns in a positively chilly take on this unjustly overlooked mid-'90s White Town classic. The best moment comes about midway through, when what sounds like a music box picks up the melody for about a measure and a half. Absolutely sublime. - Rolling Stone Blog