🕒 This article is more than 5 years old (Published Oct 25, 2017).
After Nika Danilova, better known to most as Zola Jesus, released her fourth album Taiga three years ago, there was much confusion among the music industry as to why she tried to record a catchy pop record. Following the success of rather somber three first albums—The Spoils, Stridulum II, and Conatus—that built the foundation for Danilova’s fanbase, it seemed as if she was trying to break away from the goth label that she so carefully constructed over the last few years.
The subsequent time after the fourth album proved to be a difficult time for the 28-year old singer. Plagued by depression and struggling with personal issues experienced by those close to her, she moved back home to her native Wisconsin, and started channeling the deep-entrenched sadness into new material that would later become her newest album Okovi. The record’s name translates to ‘shackles’ in many Slavic languages, and it was probably the most appropriate title for a piece of work that carries such heavy emotional weight.
Orchestral strings, loud stomping beats, and ambient instrumentals overtake this record and bring back the sound of Zola Jesus to its roots in dark, poignant music. The previously bright (and, one could say, even artificial) character of Taiga is almost thrown into oblivion as new tracks on Okovi give rise to a tormenting and distressing atmosphere.
Interestingly, the reversion to Danilova’s inherent macabre sound seems to have also mended the drawbacks of her previous live performance when she was promoting the release of Taiga. Particularly, back in December 2014, when I saw her live at Boston’s The Sinclair, there was something jarringly discordant about her performance. While the uptempo live renditions of Taiga’s songs elicited an unexpectedly uplifting atmosphere, Danilova’s stage behavior paradoxically remained bizarre and disturbing: she crawled on the floor, performed ritual-like choreography, and maintained an aloof presence.
Not to say that these gloomy witchlike elements are gone with the Okovi tour, but they now serve as a much better fit for the difficult and heartbreaking narrative of Danilova’s new album. Indeed, when she entered the stage this week at San Francisco’s The Independent, it was clear that this performance was going to be vastly different from the one that complemented the shift of sound on Taiga.
Wearing a full-body dress in abstract monochromatic marble print, with black hair hanging over her face, she opened the show with a dramatic performance of “Veka,” rising from the floor and revealing her face only on the second iteration of the verse “Who will find you / When all you are / All you are is dust,” when the song’s pounding bassline got everyone moving in the audience.
Switching between new tracks, like the dramatic “Exhumed” and the eurodance-infused “Remains,” and older songs, such as “Hikikomori” and “Vessel,” Danilova staged a well-balanced performance that was both hauntingly entertaining and piercingly moving. Surprisingly, the most captivating moment of the show was not when Danilova sang her classic single “Night.” Instead, the pinnacle of the show happened during her performance of “Witness,” a Björk-esque song that she wrote moments after finding out that someone close to her attempted suicide while she was stranded at a remote cabin in the woods.
Aside from the heartbreaking lyrics “One small thread keeps you hostage / To the better side of death,” which were alone enough to evoke long-lasting shivers, Danilova’s extraordinary vocal performance floored the entire venue as she shifted from her staple chest voice to operatic soprano. In those few moments, the bare essence of Okovi’s vulnerability completely came through and allowed for unhindered peek into the emotional turmoil that shaped the album.
It feels almost inhumane to say that this is Danilova’s finest work to date given that it was inspired by times of distorted sense of self and continuous personal struggles. But, as heartless as it sounds, there was something vicariously inspiring in her live performance—something that was guaranteed to draw in and completely absorb even the most resilient of us.
Cover photo courtesy of Timothy Saccenti. Follow him on Instagram and Tumblr as well.