Zola Jesus shares new single 'Exhumed' and announces new album 'Okovi'

Nika Danilova returns with new LP

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.

Nika Roza Danilova has been recording music as Zola Jesus for more than a decade. For the majority of that time, she’s been on Sacred Bones Records, and Okovi marks her reunion with the label.

Fittingly, the 11 electronics-driven songs on Okovi share musical DNA with her early work on Sacred Bones. The music on this record was written in pure catharsis, and as a result, the sonics are heavier, darker, and more 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 the textural universe of these songs.

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

Okovi tracklist:
1. Doma
2. Exhumed
3. Soak
4. Ash to Bone
5. Witness
6. Siphon
7. Veka
8. Wiseblood
9. NMO
10. Remains
11. Half Life

ZOLA JESUS TOUR DATES:
16/9 HUDSON, NY Basilica Soundscape
21/9 SAN DIEGO, CA Casbah
22/9 PHOENIX, AZ Valley Bar
23/9 SANTA FE, NM Meow Wolf
25/9 DALLAS, TX Kessler Theater
26/9 AUSTIN, TX North Door
27/9 NEW ORLEANS, LA Siberia
28/9 ATLANTA, GA Aisle 5
29/9 ASHEVILLE, NC The Mothlight
30/9 WASHINGTON, DC U Street
01/10 BOSTON, MA ICA Boston
03/10 PHILADELPHIA, PA PhilaMOCA
04/10 BROOKLYN, NY Rough Trade
06/10 TORONTO, ON Longboat Hall
07/10 DETROIT, MI Assemble Sound Church
08/10 CHICAGO, IL Thalia Hall
09/10 MADISON, WI Majestic Theatre
10/10 ST. PAUL, MN Amsterdam Bar & Hall
14/10 - SALT LAKE CITY, UT - Amsterdam Bar & Hall
11/10 OMAHA, NE Waiting Room
16/10 OAKLAND, CA Starline Social Club
17/10 SAN FRANCISCO, CA Independent
19/10 SEATTLE, WA Crocodile
20/10 PORTLAND, OR The Old Church
21/10 VANCOUVER, BC Venue
07/11 LONDON, UK Village Underground