Chelsea Jade

New Zealander Chelsea Jade emerged from the indie electronic project Watercolours with an intimate, atmospheric electro-pop under her first and middle name in 2014. She then relocated to Los Angeles and found work writing for acts including Wet and the Chainsmokers while continuing to issue her own material. Her collaborative full-length solo debut, Personal Best, saw release in 2018. She returned with the self-produced Soft Spot in 2022.
Born in Capetown, South Africa and raised in Auckland from the age of five, Chelsea Jade Metcalf played in an indie folk trio as a teenager with classmates Talita Setyady and Elizabeth Stokes (the Beths). She first introduced a gentle and otherworldly but still danceable indie electronica under the pseudonym Watercolours in 2011. Issued in late 2012, the Over and Under EP collected remixes of four of her songs by artists including Jeremy Toy and James Duncan. She followed it with the Watercolours EP Portals in January 2014 before releasing Beacons, her first EP as Chelsea Jade, later that year.
In 2015, Metcalf relocated to Los Angeles to pursue not only her solo career but work as a songwriter-for-hire. After contributing to songs for acts including Wet, Cxloe, and So Below, she co-wrote lyrics for the Chainsmokers 2018 single “You Owe Me.” That same year, Chelsea Jade self-released her debut album, Personal Best. It featured several collaborations, including tracks with Brad Hale (Now, Now) and Sam McCarthy (BoyBoy).
After moving to Brooklyn and collecting credits as a video editor, animator, dancer (appearing in Lorde’s “Mood Ring” video), and studio backing vocalist (Deafheaven, the Naked and Famous), she followed up her debut in 2022 with Soft Spot, which was entirely self-produced. ~ Marcy Donelson