Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle both make dark, beautifully heavy music that blurs the boundaries between folk, goth-rock, and doom metal. And today, the kindred spirits and Sargent House labelmates have teamed up on a new song called “Anhedonia,” a Chelsea Wolfe single that features vocals and guitar from Rundle. As Wolfe explains:

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.

“I was moved to tears when she sent me ‘Anhedonia,’ which made getting through the tracking very emotional and slow on my end,” Rundle adds. “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.