By CharlieBLVK
Look, I’m not the type to get dragged to concerts. But when your fiancée is obsessed with an artist, you show up. That’s how I found myself in east Hollywood at this spot called WuuM for a night called Formless curated by Mo (not our BLVKBOOK Mo, but a different Mo Mo.faulk a proflic music manager and organizer we just met whose concert series absolutely slaps and hopefully brings it to the BLVKBOOK next). CHINCHILLA was in town for Grammy weekend, and this past Tuesday night showcase was the move.
WuuM is this rare gem that feels less like a venue and more like someone’s impossibly cool library living room. People sprawled across the floor on pillows, sunk into couches, leaning against bookshelves the whole space radiates intimacy. Word on the street was that Dave Yaden had done his first analog show there the week before, and after experiencing the room myself, I understood the hype. This is the kind of space where music doesn’t just play it seeps into your bones.
The lineup for this Grammy Week Friends Edition was stacked: BANOFFEE, SHE.LAILAI, SARA DIAMOND each bringing their own flavor. Solid performances across the board, setting the emotional architecture for what was coming. But everyone knew who we were really there for.
When CHINCHILLA finally took the stage, the energy shifted. This woman doesn’t perform she exorcises. Every song about lost love, every verse dissecting the tribulations of relationships, every note felt like watching someone bleed out the pain in real-time. And she wasn’t just singing about romantic heartbreak between songs, she kept bringing up her label. Talked about dropping them multiple times like they were a toxic ex she couldn’t stop mentioning. The way she referenced them, you could tell she was relieved to be free of that relationship too. There was this lightness in how she said it, like finally exhaling after holding your breath for too long.
She came all the way from the UK for Grammy weekend, and instead of playing the industry game, she chose intimate spaces like WuuM. This wasn’t some industry showcase this was her reclaiming her narrative, her sound, her story on her own terms. While everyone else was networking at award show circuits, CHINCHILLA was pouring her soul out to a room full of strangers who became family by the end of the night.
Her cadence is otherworldly the way she manipulates rhythm and phrasing, stretching syllables in unexpected places, letting words hang just long enough to ache. She’ll hit you with rapid-fire flows that feel conversational, then slow everything down where every word lands with weight. And her range? She’d drop into these smoky, whisper-soft lows that made everyone lean in, then climb into these highs that cut straight through the room. Not showy. Just intentional storytelling through sound. By the third song, tears were everywhere, people holding each other, swaying with closed eyes, completely undone.
Then came the closer. An unreleased track that she saved for the end, and it leveled the room. In that intimate WuuM space where you could hear every breath between verses, see every emotion flicker across her face she reached into her chest and pulled out something vulnerable and devastating. The intimacy of the venue made it feel like she was singing directly to each person’s deepest wound.
CHINCHILLA isn’t just talented she’s got that rare thing where technical skill meets genuine emotion. The kind of artist who makes heartbreak feel communal, who reminds you that being broken isn’t weakness. If you ever get the chance to catch her in a space like WuuM, drop everything and go.
And if you missed her in LA, she’s taking The Bigger Room Tour across Europe starting late February hitting cities from Dublin to Amsterdam to Vienna. If this intimate WuuM performance was any indication of what she’s bringing to those stages, European audiences are in for something special.
That’s what transcendent music does. It doesn’t fix you. It just makes you feel less alone in the wreckage.
And if you’re still riding the Grammy weekend wave, BLVKBOOK is hosting the pre-party and after-party at SkyBar. Come through.
