zola jesus

I like Spoils and um...I can't remember the name of the single but I liked it, too.

she's from madison.

― by another name (amateurist), Tuesday, February 16, 2010 5:07 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

I should really watch out for her if she ever makes it to the TC

the spoils was one of my top ten records last year. pretty unfortunate that it flew under the radar as much as it did, because i think she's one of the few people nowadays who is/was actually doing lo-fi right, and not just using the murk to hide horrible songwriting. it's an aesthetic choice for her, and the distant vocals just add such a haunting quality to her work.

"night" from the new EP just kills, and really proves that she's got the chops to step up and not hide in washes of reverb.

I love, love, love Zola Jesus. I hadn't heard of her until I saw her with Woods in Chicago about six or seven months ago.

"Night" which I heard via Pitchfork is awesome. The Spoils was a top three album for me last year and "Six Feet (From My Baby)" was one of my top 25 tracks of the last decade.

I can't wait to hear her new EP.

this is like the only good music to come out of madison that i can think of

ever? no way.

uh oh, now you've done it...this is gonna turn into a Killdozer thread in no time.

ok killdozer gets a pass

She's very goth. I think ILM as a whole could go wild for her.

Think Bat for Lashes with Grouper's intimate, dark secluded house production?

She's very goth. I think ILM as a whole could go wild for her.

Think Bat for Lashes with Grouper's intimate, dark secluded house production?

― Davek (davek_00), Wednesday, March 3, 2010 3:04 AM (14 hours ago) Bookmark

nail on the head. i want to throw a bit of early marissa nadler in there too.

Sacred Bones now has the Stridulum CD/12" for pre-order, kids. http://www.sacredbonesrecords.com/

i've given "Night" a virtual spin or two, haveta admit it doesn't strike me immediately like her previous work, but i'm hoping it'll be a grower.

sacred boners, tbh.

i've given "Night" a virtual spin or two, haveta admit it doesn't strike me immediately like her previous work

Weird, as I've had the exact opposite experience with the two Stridulum tracks I've heard. "Why hasn't she sounded this good all along?!"

i don't see what's so great about her.

there is good music in madison, although some of the best bands don't play that often and/or have members scattered across a few cities.

(also btw my band is playing at the frequency tomorrow night. we'll be doing a lot of michael jackson songs.)

I think you just sold me with the Grouper comparison.

i don't think the relatively hi-fi production actually changes the experience of listening to her much: her voice is still amid balanced layers of everything else rather than out front.

hey jordan what are some of the decent madison bands?

also i would love to make it tomorrow night but i am babysitting for a friend,,,

cougar
youngblood
digdown
el clan destino

other bands that i've only caught once or twice but are interesting:

all tiny creatures
his & hers vanities

i don't keep up all that much with the rock scene or the inferno scene, though.

btw it looks like zola jesus is playing this saturday, at the project lodge

i keeps seeing that ddude with black slime pic around
now i knows why

Hah glad you guys like the comparison. Going to listen to 'Night' a couple of times.

Also does the very very creepy black slime photo remind you guys of Fever Ray? Although nothing will top that Swedish music awards appearance..

ok, so the new 12" fucking slays.

I just got home from seeing her for the second time (in Chicago).

I have no words for how amazing she is live.

I can't believe that I only paid $10 for this show. It is sooooo hypnotic and beautiful and epic.

I know that I sound like a ridiculous fanboy, but I don't know if I could miss another one of her shows in Chicago.

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.

I've been waiting and hoping this pops up in Rhapsody so I can check it out before buying. Loved pretty much everything she's done to this point (that I've heard anyway).

Just saw Evan's link. Still works! Thanks. I hope it's still up after I get off work today. (I thought websites only had these things up until the release of the album?)

It's on spotify too if you have that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvejztfwM6g

"Skin" (from Conatus) is devastating..... love the whole album to death, it's gorgeous.

Now that we're pretty well into the 90s revival, I'm working on a mixtape and I'm hunting for a few more 90s throwback tracks that sound like Nika (Zola Jesus) + Rory's Do You Wanna Be My Baby. Obviously I'm gonna use some Pictureplane, Elite Gymnastics, Korallreven, Keep Shelly in Athens, maybe a little jj or Onra. But I'm looking for something that sounds a little more lo-fi and homemade, like the feel of the Nika+Rory track above -- camped out in the bedroom trying to do Nellee Hooper's Soul II Soul productions. Maria Minerva is closing to what I'm getting at but she doesn't sound like she wants to be pop enough. Anyone found anything like this out there on myspace or bandcamp or whatever? Recommendations appreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW_cUJf2pOM

http://fattifrances.bandcamp.com/

?

would like to hear this fine mixtape

The fatti frances thing is pretty close to what I'm looking for ... thanks! Now if only I could find stuff with more piano vamps and an obsession w/the big drum track on St. Etienne's version of Only Love Can Break Your Heart.

zola vocals vs foetus orchestral arrangements

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvycDDxH2cM&feature=youtu.be

this could be quite an album ...

so nobody cares about her any more? still decicing what I think about at-first-disappointing new album

yeah, i wasn't liking what i heard

It's not awful, just a bit too transitional.

dangerous days is growing on me

Me too! Rest of the album notsomuch, Long Way Down probs a personal fav cut

y'all are talking about Taiga right? failed bid for synth pop modernity imo

transparently so, but still strong on the back half imo.

The Rihanna Danilova thing is a miss but the live show with horn section is festival-ready.

was just listening to track #11 and thinking "OK, I like this more than the readymade hit single vibe of Hunger"

the problem is there isn't *enough* readymade hit single vibe. this could have gone two ways: full-on synthpop hit single vibes, or full-on huge impassive bleak stuff. either would be better than splitting the difference.

otm imo

not feeling that record at all.

fair. just had the very weird experience of hearing "dangerous days" in, like, a Lucky Brand retail store. happy for her but o_0

yeah. I'm glad she's getting the exposure and I don't think anyone is making her do anything she doesn't want to do, it's just a jarring thing after the last record.

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.