SPELLLING, the moniker of the Bay Area experimental pop mastermind Chrystia Cabral, has emerged as a visionary artist, pushing the boundaries of genre and captivating audiences with her richly envisioned albums and enchanting live performances.
SPELLLING gained widespread recognition with the release of her critically acclaimed debut album, Pantheon of Me, in 2017. The album showcased her prodigious talent as a songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. In 2019, she signed to Sacred Bones and released her highly anticipated sophomore album, Mazy Fly, further elevating her artistic vision and expanding her sonic palette. In 2021 she released her breakthrough project, The Turning Wheel, which saw her orchestrating and self-producing an album that features an ensemble of 31 collaborating musicians. The Turning Wheel has become a career-defining opus for the artist. The album received widespread unanimous praise, earning itself The Needle Drops #1 album of the year in 2021.
As SPELLLING continues to evolve and explore new musical territories, she further solidifies herself as a once in a lifetime artist. Her ability to create beautiful soundscapes that transport listeners to other realms along with her transcendent live performances have earned her legions of dedicated fans. With each release, SPELLLING invites us on a mesmerizing journey into her world, leaving an indelible mark on the hearts and minds of her listeners.
Tour Dates
| Date | Details | Venue | City | With | Tickets | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10/07/23 |
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South Pasadena Masonic Lodge
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Los Angeles, CA |
My Brightest Diamond
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| 10/08/23 |
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Bob Baker Marionette Theater
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Los Angeles, California | ||||||||
| 10/15/23 |
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Halloween
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| 10/17/23 |
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Elsewhere (The Hall)
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Brooklyn, New York | ||||||||
| 10/18/23 |
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Baltimore, Maryland |
News
Bandcamp Essential Releases, August 25, 2023
Bandcamp
The Mystery School takes listeners into a rich musical experience. This new album from Chrystia Cabral takes a nontraditional route by reimagining songs from Spelling’s discography.
Interview: SPELLLING Unravels the Mystery
Range
Inspired by childhood fairy tales, early Christian fables, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, Tia Cabral is one of the most captivating artists working in music today.
New Music Friday: This week’s essential new albums
Fader
Chrystia Cabral a.k.a. SPELLLING has already proven herself a one-of-one singer-songwriter in modern music — a soul diva beamed from planet Kate Bush — with three excellent albums released since 2017.
SPELLLING Walks Us Through Her New LP of Reinterpretations SPELLLING & the Mystery School
Flood Magazine
With the LP out now via Sacred Bones, Chrystia Cabral shares the origins of both the original tracks from her first three records and their re-recordings.
SPELLLING Leans Into Fantasy to Find Her Sound — and Herself
KQED
With algorithms constantly quantifying our tastes and habits, it’s freeing to remember that little is truly known about some dimensions of the human experience. SPELLLING turns to her most trusted divination tools to tap into the spiritual realm: her synthesizer, her tarot cards and her intuition.
SPELLLING & the Mystery School is a Glamorous Recasting of a Rising Star’s Career
Paste Magazine
Chrystia Cabral’s latest project reimagines the greatest hits off her three critically acclaimed LPs.
Album Review: SPELLLING & the Mystery School
Pitchfork
As SPELLLING, Chrystia Cabral dances the line between straightforward dream pop and aquatic, experimental electronic folk, creating music that both roils the soul and inspires whimsical daydreams. She expanded upon her tactile sound on 2021’s audacious The Turning Wheel, using rich instrumentation to animate her folkloric stories. Working with her touring band on new album SPELLLING & the Mystery School, Cabral reshapes previous album cuts with fresh arrangements, giving them the rhythmic, freeform feel of live versions. Her voice has never sounded better, even as some of the album makes you want to turn back to the delights of her charmingly shambling earlier work.
Spellling Spellling & the Mystery School Review: Unraveling Life’s Mysteries
Slant Magazine
With a vibrant kaleidoscope of sounds and ethereal ambiance, the singer brings both her fantasy world and reality to life.
Chrystia Cabral’s Spellling & the Mystery School is a collection of songs from throughout her career as Spellling, but with a twist, as each track has undergone a complete reimagination. The already eerie “Under the Sun,” from 2019’s Mazy Fly, has been masterfully reworked into an even eerier sci-fi ballad with an ominous string arrangement and an interlude punctuated by synth flashes, while “Phantom Farewell,” from 2017’s Pantheon of Me, beefs up some of the song’s original sonic distortions for a bigger, grander sound.
ALBUM OF THE DAY: SPELLLING, “SPELLLING & the Mystery School”
Bandcamp
The 10 Albums We’re Most Excited About in August
Paste Magazine
Oakland singer/songwriter and experimentalist SPELLLING is following up her 2021 masterpiece The Turning Wheel this August with SPELLLING & The Mystery School, a collection of tracks that surf between minimalism, glitchy percussive rhythm and hypnotic pianistic patterns. Full of mysticism and drama and haunting, evocative exploration, The gravity of SPELLLING’s songwriting is immense and, in turn, she makes left-field pop music that is both alien and ambitious. SPELLING & The Mystery School is on our radar because, after teaser singles “Cherry” and “Under the Sun,” it’s shaping up to be one of the best things she’s made—which says a great deal, given that The Turning Wheel was one of the very best records of 2021
SPELLLING shares new song, reveals Through The Looking Glass lineup
The Fader
Chrystia Cabral (SPELLLING) has shared the third single from her next album, SPELLLING & the Mystery School, due out August 25 via Sacred Bones. The record reintroduces the backing ensemble that joined Cabral for her most recent full-length, 2021’s The Turning Wheel, and comprises full-band re-recordings of tracks from across Cabral’s career: The original version of today’s track, “Hard To Please (Reprise),” comes from her 2019 breakout LP, Mazy Fly. And it follows the forthcoming record’s joint lead singles, “Cherry” (a rework of “Choke Cherry Horse” from 2017’s Pantheon of Me) and “Under The Sun,” another flipped Mazy Fly cut.
All The Best New Indie Music From This Week
Uproxx
Eerie artist Spellling — real name Chrystia Cabral — received recognition for her idiosyncratic 2021 masterwork The Turning Wheel, and these new songs “Cherry” and “Under The Sun” prove she hasn’t lost her haunted appeal. “Cherry” twinkles and broods and builds with unsettling whispers, growing into an evil anthem, sounding like a scene from a horror movie.
Spellling Announces New Album, Shares Songs: Listen
Pitchfork
Spellling (aka Chrystia Cabral) has announced a new album: Spellling & the Mystery School is a collection of new versions of songs from across her discography that she recorded with her touring band. The full-length arrives August 25 via Sacred Bones. Listen to tracks from the LP, “Cherry” and “Under the Sun,” below.
SPELLLING announces new album SPELLLING & the Mystery School
The Fader
“For the tour behind her excellent 2021 album The Turning Wheel, SPELLLING performed alongside a full band called the Mystery School, giving new dimensions to the experimental pop artist’s work. If you didn’t get a chance to see those shows, SPELLLING will soon bring the experience to a new studio album called SPELLLING & the Mystery School. Out August 25 via Sacred Bones, the album will feature re-recordings of songs from across Chrystia Cabral’s discography as SPELLLING.”
Spellling Magick
East Bay Express
“Ominously distorted minimal synth chords bang underneath a whooshing chant cranked on my best speakers while I think about how best to describe this music. The artist’s name is Spellling because that is what she does, cast spells.”
Creating A World Just for Her: The Charismatic Spellling comes to Songbyrd
District Fray
“So often, there will be an article out in the world that touts an artist as being groundbreaking or revolutionizing the music world around them. And while that acclaim is great and gives merit to a plethora of new and experimental artists, what really struck me about Oakland artist Spellling is how she doesn’t try to revolutionize this existing world. If anything, she works double time to invent her own.”
4 concerts to catch in the D.C. area over the next several days
The Washington Post
Spellling — real name: Chrystia “Tia” Cabral — knows how to sing in delicate whispers, but her elocution can contradict that daintiness. She likes to lean into the drama of her songs, elongating words by overemphasizing certain syllables — a playful antithesis to the articulation-isn’t-important attitude that prevails across so much of today’s pop music.
SPELLLING Announces North American Tour, Shares Video for “Queen of Wands”
Under The Radar
‘The Turning Wheel came out last year via Sacred Bones, and was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2021. Listen to our podcast interview with Cabral, where she discusses the album.’
Spellling Announces North American Tour, Shares New “Queen of Wands”
Pitchfork
‘Spellling has announced a North American tour in support of her 2021 LP The Turning Wheel with a new video for “Queen of Wands.” After a handful of summer festival dates—including Pitchfork Music Festival on July 15—Chrystia Cabral heads out on her first headlining tour in August and October.’
NPR Music’s 50 Best Albums of 2021 – The Turning Wheel
NPR
‘On her third album as Spellling, the Bay Area-based wizardess Chrystia Cabral employs the language of myth, magic and fancy to illuminate her reality as an empathic artist negotiating the realities of a world that’s multifariously on fire.’
SASHA GEFFEN’S BEST MUSIC OF 2021 – The Turning Wheel
Art Forum
‘Chrystia Cabral’s music encircles scenes of love and harmony with the threat of what lurks beyond their light: wolves at the edge of town, snapping at the gates. ‘
The 8 Best Music Videos of June 2021
Pitchfork
‘The orchestral title track from Tia Cabral’s third album as SPELLLING is plenty dreamy on its own, but the woodsy, self-directed video neatly rounds off her fairytale vision. ‘
SPELLLING is a Conduit of the Divine on Orchestral Pop Concept LP The Turning Wheel
Audio Femme
‘The elegant collection of twelve songs builds on the bewitching synth-based sound she’s consistently refined since 2017’s Pantheon of Me, evolving in terms of lyrical complexity, sonic richness and conceptual depth. Born largely of the past year spent in isolation, these shifts all serve to signal the exponential potential of Cabral’s creative capabilities.’
SPELLLING The Turning Wheel
Pitchfork
‘The myth-skewing, Oakland-based artist is a chameleonic pop singer on her third album. Whimsical and urgent, these are fairy tales meant to wake us up.
How Dracula, Tarot Cards, and Drinking in the Shower Inspired SPELLLING’s New Album
Pitchfork
‘Tia Cabral is a shapeshifter, with an eye and ear tilting toward the fantastical. In the visuals for her experimental pop project SPELLLING, she has appeared as an entity dipped in glittery goo, a rodeo princess, and a silver-faced harlequin. In her new short film for “Turning Wheel”—the title track of her enchanting new album—Cabral leads a gaggle of circus-chic misfits up a grassy knoll, a butterfly perched on her lavender cheek.’
Album of the Day: SPELLLING, “The Turning Wheel”
Bandcamp
‘The Turning Wheel is inspired by a multitude of genres, “from soul to psych to pop to noise” according to the record’s liner notes, which she knits together to gradually transport listeners from an airy high to a heavy low. It’s all done in a theatrical fashion, each scene connected by raw emotion.’
The 11 projects you should stream now – SPELLLING
The Fader
‘We loved “Little Deer,” the immutable lead single from Oakland avant-pop artist Spellling. Her new project is entirely self-produced and enlists the talents of 31 different musicians.’
9 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Tyler, the Creator, Faye Webster, Lucy Dacus, SPELLLING, and More
Pitchfork
‘Chrystia Cabral’s new album as SPELLLING was led by the single “Little Deer”—a song she called a “thesis track” of the LP because “it accomplishes this strong impression of theater that I was striving for with the album as a whole.” Learn more in the new feature “How Dracula, Tarot Cards, and Drinking in the Shower Inspired SPELLLING’s New Album.”’
SPELLLING
Analogue Music
‘The Turning Wheel, SPELLLING’s latest work, is exactly that—a mesmerizing, inventive, and infectious work sprawling in beautiful new directions from past acclaimed albums like Mazy Fly. The Sacred Bones release drops June 25 and deserves to be heard by the masses…’
Album of the Week: SPELLLING – THE TURNING WHEEL
Treble Zine
‘Little Deer,” the first single from Cabral’s third album The Turning Wheel, proves what she’s capable of with a lot more room to stretch out and build upon the already captivating foundation she’s established. Dramatic piano chords ring out against a cinematic array of strings, with twinkly synths climbing toward starlight. It’s a stunner from the outset, but by the chorus it becomes truly breathtaking…’
THE 33 BEST ALBUMS OF 2021 SO FAR: SPELLLING – THE TURNING WHEEL
Treble Zine
‘An album of contrasts and juxtaposition, The Turning Wheel is an exploration of cycles and coefficients, its two halves comprising a set of bright orchestral pop against an underbelly of big-production gothic dirges.’
The 51 Most Anticipated Albums of Summer 2021
Pitchfork
‘The Turning Wheel is Chrystia Cabral’s third album as SPELLLING, and it marks a turn toward lush orchestration (featuring no fewer than 31 collaborative musicians) and fanciful storytelling.’
The 50 Best Albums Of 2021 So Far
Stereogum
‘As SPELLLING, Chrystia Cabral has been making darkly alluring experimental pop for years. The Turning Wheel maintains the darkness, the allure, and Cabral’s experimental touch, yet she has turned up the pop quotient significantly here.’
SPELLLING – “Turning Wheel”
Stereogum
‘SPELLLING is releasing her new album, The Turning Wheel, in a couple weeks. We’ve heard two tracks from it so far, “Little Dear” and “Boys At School,” and today we’re getting the title track, which sounds like an elaborate ’60s pop fantasia with an appropriately theatrical video to match.’
SPELLLING announces her third album, The Turning Wheel
Resident Advisor
‘The Bay Area artist will share her third full-length via the Brooklyn-based label on June 25th. The Turning Wheel draws on synth pop, R&B and soul and sees Cabral co-producing and orchestrating an ensemble of 31 musicians, including banjo, harp, bassoon and trombone. Originally meant to be released last September, the twelve-track LP was delayed due to the pandemic and resulted in instrumentalists recording in socially-distanced and remote studio sessions.’
SPELLLING Shares New Song “Boys At School” The Turning Wheel Due Out June 25 on Sacred Bones
Under The Radar
‘In a press release Cabral explains that the new song “steps back into my younger self, my teenage self to voice my angst, desires and disillusionments. I knew when I created the main motif on the piano that it was striking something really raw and both delicate and fierce. The notes just immediately transported me to the era of my youth, of this time when you are really beginning to confront the mirror of yourself to the outside world.”
SPELLLING – “Boys At School”
Stereogum
‘The Bay Area’s Chrystia Cabral is back with a new SPELLLING single, “Boys At School,” from her forthcoming album The Turning Wheel. This follows the lead single, “Little Dear,” which previewed a more upbeat, poppy direction. This new track starts as an eccentric piano ballad with haunting vocals and atmospheric synths, and gradually transforms into an intense indie rock anthem.’
‘Little Deer’ by SPELLLING Review
Pitchfork
‘From her home-recorded first album, 2017’s Pantheon of Me, up through 2019’s Sacred Bones debut Mazy Fly, the Bay Area artist Chrystia Cabral—aka SPELLLING—has entertained a fascination with the otherworldly. “SPELLLING is about showing people that there’s magic in every moment,” Cabral told Pitchfork at the time. With “Little Deer,” the sweeping first single from her forthcoming third album, The Turning Wheel, Cabral vividly melds the mythical with the familiar.’
10 Best Songs of the Week: SPELLLING, Lucy Dacus, Ora the Molecule, Twin Shadow, and More
Under The Radar
‘On Wednesday, SPELLLING (aka Chrystia Cabral) announced the release of her third studio album, The Turning Wheel, due for release on June 25 via Sacred Bones after nearly a year of delays. Cabral also shared the album’s first track and lead single “Little Deer.” Check out the album’s tracklist and cover art here.’
SPELLLING Returns with New Album ‘The Turning Wheel’
Exclaim!
Chrystia Cabral has shared details of a new album as SPELLLING. The Bay Area-based artist will release The Turning Wheel on June 25 through Sacred Bones Records.
The 12-song The Turning Wheel follows SPELLLING’s acclaimed 2019 LP Mazy Fly, which Exclaim! gave a 9/10 score.
Fader Features New SPELLLING Track, “Little Deer”
Fader
“”Little Deer,” the first single from The Turning Wheel, drops today, and continues Spellling’s eclectic, genre-defying streak wrapped in a warm and funky atmosphere…”
Pitchfork Features SPELLLING’s New Single ‘Little Deer’
Pitchfork
“…Bay Area artist Chrystia Cabral has announced a new SPELLLING album: The Turning Wheel, which follows 2019’s Mazy Fly, is out June 25 via Sacred Bones. Listen to its lead single, “Little Deer”—a song inspired by Frida Kahlo’s iconic “Wounded Deer” painting—below…”
Our Take: SPELLLING’S ‘Mazy Fly’ Will Make You Believe In Magic
Atwood Magazine
Having been quoted as drawing inspirations “from messages in her dreams,” Chrystia Cabral, who goes by SPELLLING, conjures forth a very cerebral soundscape; one filled with flashes of light shining out from the shadowy scene, every inch of which she has carefully crafted.
SPELLLING Mazy Fly Review
Pitchfork
There’s a song on SPELLLING’s debut, 2017’s Pantheon of Me, where the vocalist and musician Tia Cabral moans over a high-pitched, murderous guitar refrain, one that sounds like tiny gremlins fiending for blood: “I’m not going back to him.” She repeats herself, slightly changing the plea, as layers of ghostly vocals spill over each other. “I’m not going back to the grave.” Again, more desperate than before, she wails, “I’m not going back to the grave.”
Album Of The Week: SPELLLING Mazy Fly
Stereogum
As SPELLLING, Cabral makes music that’s basically impossible to categorize. She plays around with all sorts of dark and vaporous sounds: gothed-out horror-movie synth textures, new-wave bloop-riffs, queasy ambient sputters, bluesy squelches, creeped-out smooth-jazz saxophones, pillowy ’80s-R&B bass-riffs, spindly indie-rock guitar-murmurs. As a singer, Cabral is rooted in soul, and she’s capable of bending notes with astonishing force and conviction.
SPELLLING Is Making Haunted Electronic Pop for the Witch (or Wizard) in All of Us
Pitchfork
The Bay Area artist talks about dressing up like magical characters, obsessing over creepy carnivals, and embracing her uniqueness in this Rising interview.
Assets
