Princess Chelsea

Princess Chelsea, the stage name of Chelsea Nikkel, is an experimental pop musician from Auckland, New Zealand, known for a delicate, dreamlike sound that mixes vintage pop songwriting with wistful, sometimes darkly funny lyrics. Before establishing her solo project, she was a member of the tween-pop group The Brunettes and the Auckland band Teen Wolf, giving her a grounding in the city’s tight-knit indie pop scene before she stepped out on her own.

Her music is often described as «space pop», layering harpsichord-like keyboards, lush strings and hushed, close-mic vocals over melodies that recall 1960s pop while feeling distinctly modern and understated. She gained wider international attention with «The Cigarette Duet», a duet originally recorded with fellow New Zealand musician Jonathan Bree, whose bittersweet romanticism and viral online success made it her best-known song and introduced many listeners to her broader catalogue.

Across records exploring loneliness, domestic life and quietly surreal observations, tracks like «I Love My Boyfriend», «No Church on Sunday» and «Yulia» showcase her ability to pair disarmingly plain, conversational lyrics with lush, meticulously arranged production. Her work has helped define a distinctive strand of New Zealand pop that is intimate and lo-fi in spirit but orchestral in detail.