zola jesus

ok, so the new 12" fucking slays.

hearing everything a little closer to the speakers i'm struck by how charming her voice is; when she's not stretching operatically it's really clipped and tremulous. this is great though, uh huh, i can't stand is doing it for me right now.

I've listened to this EP as much as I've listened to anything else this year; "Manifest Destiny" in particular gives me goosebumps every time. Epic stuff. I used to cover the Madison music scene, and with all due respect to the pretty decent musicians there, this is the first thing I've heard from Madison since I left that's truly stunned me.

Her voice reminds me of that "hold on to that old fashioned feeling" alt-country lady. What's her name?

'night' is a great fucking song. anyone else getting a fever ray vibe off this?

'i can't stand' ffs.

Night is still great but the rest I found very samey. Looking forward to her next steps.

xpost That's not the answer to either question, Ian.

Can't tell you how much I've been loving this stuff over the past few months. So far, I'm most infatuated with The Spoils and Tsar Bomba, less so Stridulum. I mean, I have no problems with the relative clarity of her vocals on the new stuff. I like the clarity. But I'm bummed that the electronic texturing has been reduced to a backdrop for those vocals. There's something incredibly involving and fresh about the tension between singing/songs and ambience/atmosphere on those earlier recordings. Night's stunning and all, but it's much easier to get a handle on than say Rester. It seems like an outstanding example of a songwriting approach I'm already familiar with, rather than something truly unique (but still appealingly pop). Maybe that's unfair, I dunno...

anyone else getting a fever ray vibe off this?

yeah a little bit. first listen to Stridulum I was trying to place what else sounds like this and I thought Siouxsie and The Knife

sounds like siouxsie sioux singing over really gothic fever ray beats. it's pretty cool, though, i guess. her voice is just like siouxsie sioux, but with that affected twang that like every female vocalist is doing these days. holly miranda, lilly allen, feist. ugh, nevermind, i hate this music.

I thought Siouxsie and The Knife

So Dan's favorite musician ever, is what you're saying.

Fever Ray News:

Zola Jesus to support Fever Ray on 2010 European tour

We can announce that Zola Jesus will be supporting Fever Ray in London, Paris and Glasgow on the September 2010 European tour. Read more at feverray.com.

6th Sep - O2 ABC, Glasgow, UK - Buy Tickets - W/ Zola Jesus
8th Sep - Brixton Academy, London, UK - Buy Tickets - W/ Zola Jesus
9th Sep - La Cigale, Paris, France - Buy Tickets - W/ Zola Jesus
10th Sep - Berlin Festival, Berlin, Germany - Buy Tickets
11-13th Sep – Bestival, Isle of Wight, UK - Buy Tickets

Nika + Rory > Zola Jesus

not very good live, i'm afraid

i find her songs and her singing very samey. i thought i would like it, but she's not really weird enough. i want her to do something more interesting with her voice that she doesn't seem to be doing. maybe she hasn't been given good enough melodies to do more than that one thing she does.

i find her songs and her singing very samey.this is a fair complaint, though not one that troubles me much so far. suspect that it is what keeps me at a distance from stridulum, though. in the past, the music was doing at least half the work, where now her voice has become the primary focus. in that context, she does lean a bit too hard on a few (admittedly good) tricks. for the moment, i'm happy listening to her older material and waiting to see what comes next.

bought a used copy of the soeur sewer (sir sewer?) 45 the other day for a couple bucks. very nice.

not very good live, i'm afraid

― goole, Wednesday, June 30, 2010 11:59 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

saaaay whaaaaat? i saw her a few weeks back for NXNE, and she was great. the band wasn't even her own group of regulars. she had amazing projection and just captivated everybody in the room. not much of a presence really, but as the show progressed, she looked a bit more comfortable.

never see her, but have heard very promising word from everyone i know who has

has a new collaborative or split ep out with someone soon, and is rereleasing stridulum as stridulum ii with some extra junk on. playing shows with fever ray too

just ordered the new split with LA Vampires fron nnf

eh, maybe it was an off night or the soundman didn't get what was up. her singing was flat and the keyboards sounded kind of anemic. it just wasn't that great.

kind of wanted to see her last week (small local club, apparently not very well attended) but it didn't work out

http://www.avclub.com/madison/articles/zola-jesus-at-the-frequency,42577/

The three people I was with all hated them. I didn't really like them but I thought there was *something there*. Her voice was good but she was using it a bit badly (oversinging etc.) and the songs were WAY too samey. They had kind of a good presence and look and there was something in their sound that was interesting but needs refining. I think she needs a band behind her.

"Shedding her formerly resolutely goth persona via her newly bleached blonde hair and her formerly lowest-of-the-lo-fi sound via a commanding five-piece band"

Oh, so I guess, uh, yeah, she already has a band and just didn't play with it tonight.

I thought the show last night was much better than it should have been (given the location) but her Napoleon Dynamite guitarist needs to stop trying to do indie harmonies.

She was painfully out of key a few times.

haven't really like any of her releases so far.
Will that L.A. Vampires split thing change things for me?
Anyone know?

I've seen her twice now. First time was at Wire fest in Chicago and she was great, but the 3 (!) synth players stole the show.

Saw her in a duo format here in Portland last month and she stole the show. She sings the whole damn time, and when there are instrumental breaks in the songs, they are no more than 2 bars long. She ended the set by jumping on the floor and smashing a bottle. It was cute.

I really want to see the full band format because the live drummer is the kid from Jex Thoth and he is excellent.

have not see her yet (missed the recent local shows), but still love the records, and "night" is creeping up on my favorite songs of the year. L.A. vampires split is reminiscent of her pre-stridulum stuff, and if you don't like that, there isn't much reason to pick it up.

I saw her twice last week (once headlining in a tiny venue and then supporting Fever Ray) and it cemented the love that developed from listening to 'Stridulum II' on repeat for the weeks previous.

Seeing her right up close in the tiny indie basement was just incredible I thought. Her voice was wonderful.

her voice yes, but i thought the backing was pretty dreadful. she really needs to lose those guys playing bad digital synth sounds and the most leaden drum machine rhythms i've heard for a long, long time.

Hmmm, I suppose I was pretty transfixed by the voice and her presence, but I did like the whole creepy industrial vibe from the synths/drum machines.

http://krakow.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v9/p787657422-3.jpg

http://krakow.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v10/p605578174-3.jpg

lovely shots, krakow.

I can imagine the tiny basement gig would have been a lot better, but the synth backing was so totally generic that I commented halfway through that the two guys could easily be forgetting which song they were meant to be playing every time, and not even realising their mistake. She also looked REALLY awkward on a big stage!

I was disappointed with the bigger venue show supporting Fever Ray. I hoped that she would ramp things up somehow compared to the basement gig, in order to take advantage of and fill the space, but sadly she didn't, or couldn't, so I do basically agree, even as a raging fan boy.

Thanks! BTW.

new EP out on sacred bones, valusia. typically lovely, austere & grandiose. "tower" is immense. loving it, but still missing the crushing synth fuzz of her early stuff. record store girl complained due to featured presence of the "night" video on italian vogue webpage. how is that a bad thing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYMFQknupyw

Foolishly bought this without checking tracklist - 3 of the 4 tracks were on Stridulum II

boooo!

hate it when artists pull that shit

I saw her once and thought she was kind of meh. I could see it better with a full band, but she also needs a little more varied songwriting.

still missing the crushing synth fuzz of her early stuff

i get this but the vocal hook in poor animal is hard to discount. it's a little monster of a goth-rock song.

i <3 "sea talk".. reminds me heavily of mahogany's "my bed is my castle"

Still annoyed that thhe vs LA Vampires things isn't available as a CD

really really digging the valusia ep

valusia is incredibly good! the second she started singing in the first song i was like "i have made an excellent decision in purchasing this"

got the other one coming in the mail in a bit.

i think djp would be feelin this

New track 'Vessel' from upcoming album Conatus, released Oct 4th. Kinda reminds me of a Gothic Lykke Li a bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMSTg4gStOE

Tracklistling etc http://consequenceofsound.net/2011/06/zola-jesus-announces-new-album-conatus/

New album just announced, she's back on Sacred Bones.

https://zolajesus.bandcamp.com/album/okovi

Fittingly, the 11 electronics-driven songs on Okovi share musical DNA with her early work on Sacred Bones. The music was written in pure catharsis, and as a result, the sonics are heavy, dark, and exploratory. In addition to the contributions of Danilova’s longtime live bandmate Alex DeGroot, producer/musician WIFE, cellist/noise-maker Shannon Kennedy from Pedestrian Deposit, and percussionist Ted Byrnes all helped build Okovi’s textural universe.

With Okovi, Zola Jesus has crafted a profound meditation on loss and reconciliation that stands tall alongside the major works of its genre. The album peaks of tragedy with great wisdom and clarity. Its songs plumb dark depths, but they reflect light as well.

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Last year, I moved back to the woods in Wisconsin where I was raised. I built a little house just steps away from where my dilapidated childhood tree fort is slowly recombining into earth. Okovi was fed by this return to roots and several very personal traumas.

While writing Okovi, I endured people very close to me trying to die, and others trying desperately not to. Meanwhile, I was fighting through a haze so thick I wasn’t sure I’d find my way to the other side. Death, in all of its masks, has been encircling everyone I love, and with it the questions of legacy, worth, and will.

Okovi is a Slavic word for shackles. We’re all shackled to something—to life, to death, to bodies, to minds, to illness, to people, to birthright, to duty. Each of us born with a unique debt, and we have until we die to pay it back. Without this cost, what gives us the right to live? And moreover, what gives us the right to die? Are we really even free to choose?

This album is a deeply personal snapshot of loss, reconciliation, and a sympathy for the chains that keep us all grounded to the unforgiving laws of nature. To bring it to life, I decided to enlist the help of Alex DeGroot, who has been the only constant in my live band and helped mix the Stridulum EP back in 2010. It will be released on Sacred Bones, the closest group of people I’ll ever have to blood-bound family.

yay! one of my favourite voices in music atm

Hoping its back to the Stridulum sensibility, too.

Anyway, album's out and all -- and it's really good! I might call it my favorite by her yet.

I particularly like the bits that take inspiration from Bug.

Gavin R. otm

Life is so much better with @ZOLAJESUS Thankyou for another masterpiece ❤️

— GAVIN ROSSDALE (@GavinRossdale) September 19, 2017

People get OKOVI if you are in need and desire. @ZOLAJESUS

— GAVIN ROSSDALE (@GavinRossdale) September 19, 2017

Welp, Gavin's not wrong. Saw her on Sunday night and she was amazing even while recovering from a virus/laryngitis. I love this album so much.

Loved the hell out of Stridulum but that album became associated with a pretty horrible time of my life so I stayed well clear of her afterwards. I now feel ready to get back in

I dreamt the other day that I was gonna travel to Asheville to see her play there and it was intense and amazing. I sadly ended up not having the opportunity to do so irl :(

It was very intense and amazing. Granted I'm going thru some stuff rn but I cried though a good portion of the performance.

just the intro of this album blew me away

yeah she put on an awesome show both times i've seen her, strongly recommend to anyone who likes her records at all.

yeah this new one is really good, been playing it on the air every week

did yall know she's klobuchar's cousin?

whaaaa

Yes and she’s a big Bernie fan, her timeline is 90% Bernie stuff.

i'm not fucking around with my bernie support. he's running against my cousin. i'm going against bloodlines for this shit!

— ZJ for BERNIE SANDERS 2020 (@ZOLAJESUS) February 3, 2020

klobuchar :|
🇸🇮

— ZJ for BERNIE SANDERS 2020 (@ZOLAJESUS) February 3, 2020

i did bc i follow her on twitter! amy klobuchar's cousin!!

can’t believe i can finally say this: my new album arkhon is out may 20 2022 !!!

you can listen to the first single “lost” now as well as view the accompanying music video i traveled to turkey to make with @DiaryofMu at the link below:https://t.co/jOQl7SOPXz pic.twitter.com/SJYqg6p6x8

— ZOLA JESUS 🇺🇦 (@ZOLAJESUS) March 23, 2022

Looking forward to it.

I don't think I've heard ZJ since 2010, but a friend told me to listen to the new album this morning and it's sounding good. Everything is very BIG but I think she pulls it off. That said, I really don't listen to much else like this so ymmv

My CD arrived yesterday but not played it yet. Looking forward to listening to it though as she's one of my favourites of the past decade.

Haven’t really dug her last couple of albums but this is excellent.