CHARMING DISASTER

Goth-folk duo with songs about death, crime, myth, magic, & the occult.

[charmingdisaster]

Charming Disaster - New Moon

From Charming Disaster's 2025 album THE DOUBLE comes "New Moon": a dreamy incantation, a meditation on urban insomnia, and an immersion in t

Oh hello Tumblr we just dropped a new music video for our song "New Moon" (filmed partly in our actual apartments, and more importantly, featuring our actual cats). Hope you enjoy.

[isthisyourname]

What is your name?

Isabella

Alexander

Belledonna

My name doesn't appear in the 2019 bop Belladonna Melodrama by Charming Disaster

Voting ended onFeb 6

[charmingdisaster]

THE TIME DRAWS NEAR. Our September Tour is closer by the day, are you ready?

We’ll be waiting for you.

Tix + show info: charmingdisaster.com/shows

[dustedmagazine]

Charming Disaster — The Double (Self Released)

Charming Disaster sings from a haunted Victorian boudoir, hung all round with silky luxury and velvet comfort and wreathed in scent that might be old fashioned perfume, or, alternatively, poison.  The duo of Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris, from Brooklyn, floats through macabre storylines and lavish, steam-punk arrangements, their music sweet and disturbing and faintly archaic.  This seventh and latest album, The Double, explores the nasty side of dopplegangers, twins, clones and partners in crime.  Here, bad news comes in twos. 

Consider “Gang of Two,” a tipsy waltz giddy on its own huffed fumes.  Stylish, lushly arranged, utterly unrepentant, the song circles a doomed, damned partnership between two petty crooks, observing, “It’s hard to say goodbye/when you’re chained side by side.”  Except for the occasional slash of electric guitar, a sporadic rush of dissonance, the tune would work in early 20th century vaudeville, old-fashioned in timbre but starkly modern in its lack of sentimentality. 

“Trick of the Light” is even spookier, with disembodied vocal coos riding an undulating bass riff.  The song gains muscle and density as it goes, culminating in a rousing all-hands chorus of “It’s all right, it’s all right, tonight.”  Still the riveting part is the spare verse, seeping like poison gas though the cracks in the walls and punctuated by plinks of glockenspiel and stray, broken keyboard stabs. 

The duo has mastered the trick of turning a whirling waltz into a dance macabre, its three-timed confections laced with the smell of death.  “Haunted Lighthouse,” is at once a ghost story and a sea shanty, reeling with accordion trills and rollicking dangerously like the deck of a ship.   

You can certainly draw connections to other dark, steam-punk-y folk outfits, such as Faun Fables and Puerto Muerto, and like these bands, Charming Disaster insists on a certain amount of suspended disbelief.  It’s a form of theater, complete with archaic instruments, costumes, make-up and gothic literary references, and it’s not for everyone, but Charming Disaster does it well. 

Jennifer Kelly

[charmingdisaster]

"it’s not for everyone, but Charming Disaster does it well."  

[solreefs]

pick a charming disaster song based on the summary

ghost husband is way better than the living one

your secretary might be a demon. don’t worry about it

the inherent sexual tension of being a target for throwing knives

what if i kissed your voodoo doll in between stabbing it 👀 👉👈

we are dancing in a literal hellscape

i’m dating the devil and it’s going pretty well actually

couple gets chased by secret society only to end up killing each other

oh shit we discovered radiation

there is someone hiding in my laboratory

what if you woke up as a disembodied head would that be fucked up or what

manta rays are my favorite animal

Voting ended onSep 9, 2023

[solreefs]

which of these does not summarize a real charming disaster song?

i had an affair with the cop who busted my mother’s illegal poker game

carbon monoxide poisoning

we probably just killed someone. let’s go to ocean city about it.

going on a heist with someone i want to kiss but also turn in to law enforcement

what if you were a disembodied head

extended metaphor comparing one’s lover to an artichoke

the inherent romantic tension of curse poppets

what a lovely afternoon. i sure hope my green paint isn’t toxic.

Voting ended onApr 17, 2024

[psitrend]

Interview with Charming Disaster about their new album The Double

Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris speak about narrative songwriting, occult aesthetics, and how their duo evolved into a conceptual archive Charming Disaster, the duo of Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris, formed in Brooklyn in 2012 and have since cultivated a body of work steeped in occult symbolism, murder balladry, and theatrical noir. Drawing equally from the American folk tradition and cabaret’s…

Interview with Charming Disaster about their new album The Double

[charmingdisaster]

Charming Disaster - Time Machine

From Charming Disaster's 2025 album THE DOUBLE comes "Time Machine," a steampunk-inspired animated adventure through space and time, in whic

Good news, we built a time machine

P.S. out now on Spotify, Bandcamp & all platforms: https://charmingdisaster.hearnow.com/

[charmingdisaster]

BEHOLD, our new album is unleashed

[psitrend]

Interview with Charming Disaster about their new album The Double

Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris speak about narrative songwriting, occult aesthetics, and how their duo evolved into a conceptual archive Charming Disaster, the duo of Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris, formed in Brooklyn in 2012 and have since cultivated a body of work steeped in occult symbolism, murder balladry, and theatrical noir. Drawing equally from the American folk tradition and cabaret’s…

Interview with Charming Disaster about their new album The Double

[charmingdisaster]

From Charming Disaster's upcoming album THE DOUBLE comes "Trick of the Light," inspired by Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and a music video paying homage to horror film classics. Who is the vampire and who is the victim? Don't you worry your pretty head about it.

"Trick of the Light" just dropped as a single on all major platforms. Add it to your vampire playlists, share it with your friends, bite it on the neck.

video production credits: direction/art/edit: Zolomon Zelko cinematography: Max Losson camera dept: Isabella Nemcik special appearance: Finley Stein straitjacket provided by Magic Brian special thanks to Green-Wood Cemetery

music production credits: written and composed by Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris Ellia Bisker: vocals, ukulele, organ, piano, glockenspiel, percussion Jeff Morris: vocals, guitar, organ, piano, percussion Don Godwin: bass, drums Engineered and mixed by Don Godwin at Tonal Park (Takoma Park, MD) Mastered by Stefan Heger (Cologne, Germany)

[charmingdisaster]

We just cracked open the LAST BOX of SPELLS + RITUALS records—only 24 copies remain of our first vinyl pressing (we made these in 2019, before we re-released our first two albums on vinyl).

In honor of this momentous occasion, each one of these records will be autographed, and if you like we’ll inscribe it to you or the person of your choosing (leave us a note in your order to let you know if/how you want yours personalized).

Get one while you still can: charmingdisaster.bandcamp.com/album/spells-rituals

[charmingdisaster]

Oh hello, if you live in/near Brooklyn and enjoy our music and indie horror short films, good news!

Secrets of the Dead Sunday, Jan 19 at Sleepwalk 251 Bushwick Ave, E Williamsburg (steps from the Montrose L) 7pm live set by Charming Disaster 8pm film screaming, we mean screening

GET TICKETS

P.S. There MIGHT be a sneak preview viewing of an unreleased new music video, just saying

[metalshockfinland]

MELANIE's CHARMING DISASTER Says 'Aloha' to Lucifer This Halloween

The late Melanie described “Aloha Lucifer” as “Such a happy song, because even the Devil probably needs to take a summer vacation.” Well yes. Especially with Halloween just around the corner. Sadly, Melanie did not live to record a full studio version of the song. But she did tape a great “live in the studio” version, and as the end of October draws closer and we find ourselves missing already…

MELANIE's CHARMING DISASTER Says 'Aloha' to Lucifer This Halloween

[charmingdisaster]

“One of the most spellbinding acoustic goth-folk-cabaret duos ever to walk the earth” (!)

-Metal Shock Finland

[marzipanandminutiae]

Describing Charming Disaster Songs Badly

- The theater kids’ alternative book report on Edgar Allan Poe

- we are far apart but I love you and we have a mental connection (in dreams)

- we are far apart but I love you and we have a mental connection (I’m going to kill you)

- we are far apart but I love you and we have a mental connection (astrophysics metaphor)

- groovy apocalypse beach party

- horny folk magic

- The theater kids’ alternative book report on Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell

- rehab doctors hate them: this circus performer discovered one weird trick to kick a worrying number of addictive habits

- Who Wants To Learn About Fraudulent Medium Eusapia Palladino

- The theater kids’ alternative book report on the entire penny dreadful genre

- that one song everyone knows from Welcome to Night Vale

- OSHA: the origin story

-  literally just a list of poisonous plants

- what if your house is haunted AND you have carbon monoxide poisoning

- The theater kids’ alternative book report on Dracula

- horny knife-throwing

- One time Jeff Morris’ great aunt was a showgirl in the 1920s [Trumpet solo]

- horny murder

- what if we were James Bond-esque spies and we… No I shan’t say it

[charmingdisaster]

Announcing the Kickstarter campaign for our next album, The Double, and the second edition of the Charming Disaster Oracle Deck! Pledge to support its creation, choose exciting rewards, and find out more here: https://charmingdisaster.com/kickstarter

The Double is a new collection of songs about myth, magic, and mortality, with songs about: Time travel! Alchemy! Magical rituals! Jailbreaks! Count Dracula! High seas adventure! The ominous wonders of the botanical world (and its inevitable takeover)! And more! It will be released on CD as well as a double vinyl album that also includes the first vinyl pressing of our singles collection Time Ghost. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL: We are also creating an updated edition of the sold-out Oracle Deck inspired by Charming Disaster’s music.

[bitterbellflowers]

"Our Lady of Radium, light up the dark~"