Princess Chelsea, live at the Lansdowne 1 October 2026

Aotearoa ebbs and flows through Australia’s collective consciousness in forms not immediately detectable. Though the city of Sydney has a greater population than both islands combined, the Kiwis have found crafty ways to slip themselves into the cultural machinations of the Eastern Seaboard. I’ve come to expect this sly, almost cheeky hustle they employ, and while I hesitate to lean into the stereotype of isolation breeding genius, Princess Chelsea may be one of Oceania’s finest examples. Her lengthy career, evolving basically in tandem with the internet, has never been easy to delineate into any one scene or period. While the music alone is enough to satiate the sparky listener, I find it’s the immersion in the accompanying videos that pulls you fully into her placeless, elfin dream world. And while it came as a shock that her performance at Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel for Yours and Owls was her Australian debut (it seems only natural that she would have had her Australian fill at least once in the past two decades), I was glad it could play host to that empyrean world tonight, alongside Riki Twinkle Wells and NEIS. 

The stage is arranged in the manner of a dollhouse bedroom: a two-keyboard synthesiser setup tucked in the corner, bounded by an entire table of xylophonic plates. Her bandmates’ microphones stand adjacent to her, centrestage but unmoored to anything in particular. Someone reminiscent of our own Judy Davis commands the synth: solemnly for the first half, bubbly for the second. The guitarists, firm in their positions at the back left and right of the stage, frame Princess Chelsea and her Dream Warriors, and without any hierarchy, can all embody their own distinct stage presence. Cheerfully introducing her collaborators, the mood is lifted higher by her bewitching manner and attire; a pale two-piece mesh set with a beautiful woollen bonnet encircling her brunette pixie cut. People gather around the blaring speakers like moths to a flame, and at least two people place a hand upon them as the resonance fills the room. 

The stage is arranged in the manner of a dollhouse bedroom: a two-keyboard synthesiser setup tucked in the corner [and] bounded by an entire table of xylophonic plates.

Her analog influences are blatant and hardly something worth me fleshing out, and I’d urge you to tinker around with them yourself. That said, Princess Chelsea’s exploration of the VHS player’s interior is more consciously ironic than anything that inserts itself under the vaporwave or synth-revival umbrella. There’s no doubt you’ve come across her work casually. When introducing her to anyone, I ask them to recall her most popular songs before diving elsewhere: the Cigarette Duet with former Brunettes bandmate and frequent collaborator Johnathan Bree, or her solo “I Love My Boyfriend”. The former remains catchy yet cutting even fifteen years later, embodying perfectly the irony that underpins her practice. This is hardly to say her presence as an artist is unserious; far from it: Princess Chelsea is a herald of the digital generation, able to educe the faintest memories from the collective and produce such a distinct aesthetic that I would argue many contemporary artists draw from.

If Princess Chelsea is the cherry on top, NEIS cement themselves as the glistening icing lining the walls for the night ahead. Composed of Stella and Jack, the uncle and niece duo strike a special place in my heart given we’ve shared NSW’s southern coasts in our upbringing. Hailing from Cobargo, their music is never limited by any bucolic themes, to the end of being almost as placeless as the subsequent act. Chelsea’s synthwave parasol is large enough to accommodate them comfortably, and their uniquely shimmery sound affords an easy transition between the sets. Rather than bounce off the walls, the music fulfils a zero-sum equation where it absorbs and reverberates through the venue and its patrons. 

Wandering around after NEIS’s set’s, I’m so immersed in their afterglow that I miss Chelsea’s opening and enter during the first few seconds of ‘Time’. Taking my cues from the music video, set in a nondescript central European city somewhere between Prague and Bratislava and with dark, almost vampiric styling, I expect a much more dour affair. Instead, we are treated to a longer, more dramatic incarnation of the already soulful piece, with soaring Morrison-esque guitar solos and a croon I can only liken to Dolores O’Riordans. In her darling angel garb, Princess Chelsea screams as her bandmates drone seamlessly along with the blare of the synthesiser. It is the closest we come to a miniature mosh forming. People mingle and sway at the base of the stage in reverence to the fairy in the baby bonnet. 

we are treated to a longer, more dramatic incarnation of ‘time’, with soaring Morrison-esque guitar solos and a croon I can only liken to Dolores O’Riordans. In her darling angel garb, Princess Chelsea screams as her bandmates drone seamlessly along with the blare of the synthesiser.

There are few artists who can maintain a visual output which complements the audial so consistently. Tracing her artistic progression across her YouTube channel, you come to know her as an eternally playful individual, aware that her work is equally a display of her talent and a statement on the universal as it is a personal outlet. Having full access to her early work is a blessing like few others. There is a detectable through line between each album exploring a different realm of analog revival. In performance, her xylophone table glues everything together, and the deceptively subtle synth arrangements bely the congruity of the music.

Chelsea’s mannerisms remain uninhibited by the crowd. Not only an amazing performer, her candid demeanour and responsiveness allow for her easy confidence to diffuse and enliven the room’s atmosphere. She bounces and flits about the stage, slipping seamlessly into her endless array of instruments. Her pixieish voice and nimbleness entice you further and further into the portal; the emerald-green glade along the braided, white sand river where she was made a princess. 

She embarks on the more independent portion of the performance with ‘Aftertouch’. Again, with my cues informed by the music video, my anticipations are affirmed in the luminescent, self-aware love song fed by sci-fi futuristic reveries of the 1980s. Mentions of hovercars, a plastic heart and a bedroom drowned in a lilac glow make this one of her most immersive works. The synth reigns supreme on the overtones, the sole piercing light being her gentle chant: “Aftertouch…aftertouch …”

The synth reigns supreme on ‘Aftertouch’; the sole piercing light her gentle chant: “Aftertouch … aftertouch …”

Princess Chelsea’s setlist tonight unfortunately excludes some of my personal favourites from The Great Cybernetic Depression, such as ‘Too Many People’ and ‘No Church on Sunday’. These two are where her familiarity with the elysian realm shines through. Containing some of her most catchy melodies, there’s a clever juvenility to the content –– the former bemoaning a universal close-mindedness that is the closest we may get to her corporeal groundings:

“And it’s been ten years since anyone was here

Who might have told the truth

So they stay inside, speak white lies

They haven’t got a clue…”

‘No Church on Sunday’ is one of the most creatively arranged and personal pieces she has made, and also the first song of hers I loved. It also accompanies my favourite of her music videos: the destruction of a literal digital dream world in true pathetic fallacy.

“Last night I saw my parents

Thought they had disowned me

They bought me dinner from McDonalds

Because it’s my favorite…”

When all draws to a close, and the dulcet timbre of her accent is sequestered off stage, the audience disperses, pleased. Praise for her swelters in the sauna-like outdoor area: there’s talk of Aotearoa being the future, laments of late discoveries, and hums of her melodies. Here and now, though, I walk past the Lansdowne’s green-room adjacent to the staircase, which bears a large mirror I suspect is one-way. Acting on this whim, I wave into my reflection in a potentially unrequited exchange of energy. I can only hope she saw me at that moment.