News

ZOLA JESUS – Shares new video for “Siphon” ahead of UK tour over the coming weeks. Album ‘Okovi’ out now on Sacred Bones.

October 26, 2017

ZOLA JESUS
– Shares new video for “Siphon”
– European tour starts now!
– UK dates over the next few weeks
– Album ‘Okovi’ out now on Sacred Bones

“Nika Roza Danilova has perfected her hybrid of industrial electronics and gothic power balladry” (4*) – The Observer
 “It is a beautiful record: soulful and deep” (8/10) – Loud & Quiet 
 “Takes the listener on a deep journey that encompasses loss, clarity and definitive endings of human life” – Mixmag
“Beautiful” – The Sunday Times
“On Okovi real life tragedies have pushed her not only close to the edge personally but to a new level creatively… Zola Jesus is back to her dark roots, but enriched by intense layers of experience” – The Wire 
 “Zola Jesus’ cathartic and fearless rendering of her pain and humanity on Okovi make it
her most powerful album to date” 
(9/10) – The 405

Following high praise from critics for her deeply personal and brave new album ‘Okovi’, which was released via Sacred Bones last month, Zola Jesus prepares for an extensive European tour with a new video.

Directed by Zia Anger, this bold visual accompanies album track Siphon – a strikingly bare and honest reaction to the attempted suicide of someone close. This song is incredibly literal and personal,” Zola Jesus told NPR earlier in the year. “It’s hard to talk about or try to explain beyond what’s written in the lyrics.” 

Speaking on the video, Zia Anger (who also directed Jenny Hval’s controversial video for “Conceptual Romance”last year) commented: “It was a very sobering experience to be trusted with such visceral material.”

‘Okovi’ proves to be a dark, powerful, personal piece of work from the Wisconsin-based artist and Nika Roza Danilova (aka Zola Jesus) had the following to say about the record:

“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.”

Zola Jesus European live dates:
October
28 – Cologne, DE – Luxor
29 – Brighton, UK – The Haunt
31  – Glasgow, UK – St. Luke’s
November
01 – Manchester, UK – Band on the Wall
02 – Leeds, UK – Belgrave Music Hall
03 – Norwich, UK – Arts Centre
04 – Liverpool, UK – Stanley Theatre
06 – Dublin, IE – Whelan’s
07 – London, UK – Village Underground
08 – Paris, FR – Le Point Ephémère
10 – Skopje, MK – Cinedays
12 – Geneva, CH – La Gravière
14 – Roma, IT – Monk
15 – Bologna, IT –  Locomotiv
16 – Bern, CH – Dampfzentrale
17 – Milan, IT – Magnolia
18 – Zagreb, HR – Mocvara
20 – Nuremburg, DE –  Z-Bau
21 – Vienna, AT – Fluc
22 – Berlin, DE – SO36
23 – Leipzig, DE – UT Connewitz
25 – Frankfurt, DE – Mousonturm
27 – Brussels, BE – Beursschouwburg
28 – Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso
29 – Hamburg, DE – Uebel & Gefahrlich

Links:
Facebook
Twitter

You Might Also Like

No Comments

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.