Princess Chelsea

Chelsea Lee Nikkel, better known by her stage name Princess Chelsea, is a producer, musician and visual artist from Auckland, New Zealand. She was a member of twee pop band the Brunettes and cult Auckland band Teenwolf. Chelsea has released four albums of original material and one covers album. Nikkel is associated with the Lil' Chief Records collective and is a part-time member of Disciples of Macca, a Paul McCartney covers band featuring members of the Brunettes, Ruby Suns, Bressa Creeting Cake and Lawrence Arabia and more recently performs as bass player in three-piece rock'n'roll band, Hang Loose.

Music career
Chelsea’s baroque musical style has been attributed to her classical training, and the New Zealand Herald has praised her "angelic vocals and acerbic wit". Her best known song, "The Cigarette Duet" received significant press exposure after its video went viral on YouTube in early 2012, recently reaching over 100 million views. This led to her being featured on The Guardian ' s "New Band of the Day". Chelsea is also known for her distinctive and influential visual style which emerged with her creation of homemade low budget music videos beginning in 2011. Chelsea cites Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests and director Robert Altman as influencing her visual style and more recently has begun making visual content for other artists directing and editing music videos for In The Sunshine and Politics by Jonathan Bree. The self-directed music video for ‘I Love My Boyfriend’ is an example of her signature visual style which often incorporates mixed multimedia and VHS with an editing style that favours long voyeuristic shots as depicted in early music videos for ‘Yulia’ ‘Ice Reign’ and most famously ‘The Cigarette Duet’.

For the music videos from her second album The Great Cybernetic Depression, Chelsea began working exclusively with New Zealand based video artist Simon Ward who directed the web series Aroha Bridge with Jessica Hansell and collaborates with New York-based New Zealand contemporary artist Jess Johnson. Simon Ward directed the music videos for ‘Is It All Ok?’, ‘We’re So Lost’, ‘We Are Strangers’ ,'We Were Meant 2 B' and ‘No Church on Sunday’. Simon Ward also directed the music videos for ‘Frack’ and ‘Caution Repetitive’ from her first album ‘Lil’ Golden Book’. Chelsea's song "When The World Turns Grey" from The Great Cybernetic Depression was remixed in a collaboration with the German electronic music producer, Robin Schulz. The remix is on the album Sugar released by Schulz in September 2015.

In August 2016, Chelsea made a cover of a song called "Cold Glass Tube" by the Reduction Agents, which is available on the album Waiting for Your Love: A Tribute to the Reduction Agents. This was followed up by an album of covers called Aftertouch which features her signature dreamy electronic productions of songs by a variety of artists including Lucinda Williams, Elvis Presley, Interpol and Nirvana.

In May 2018, Princess Chelsea released the album The Loneliest Girl which features the runaway hit ‘I Love My Boyfriend’.

In 2019 Chelsea moved to Waiheke Island in New Zealand and took a self-imposed hiatus from music after experiencing a mental health collapse.

In 2022 Princess Chelsea collaborated with French electronic artist Mattyeux from the project Videoclub on the duet ‘Sometimes’ released on Warner Chappell France.

In March 2023 Princess Chelsea collaborated with Jonathan Bree and Nile Rodgers on the duet ‘Miss You'.

In April 2023, Princess Chelsea won the Taite Music Prize for her fifth album Everything is Going to be Alright which chronicles her recovery from a two year long mental health crisis.

On March 6th 2024, Teenwolf reunited for a one-off gig supporting Shonen Knife on Waiheke Island.

Albums

 * Lil' Golden Book (2011)
 * The Great Cybernetic Depression (2015)
 * Aftertouch (2016)
 * The Loneliest Girl (2018)
 * Everything Is Going to Be Alright  (2022)

EPs

 * The Cigarette Duet (European Tour Edition) (2012)