Zola Jesus - Okovi

The Quietus

Retreating from the world in order to mine for inspiration and incentive is not a rare creative stratagem. But for Nika Danilova, aka Zola Jesus, the decision to return to her isolated hometown in Wisconsin to build a house in its woods stemmed directly from a source rooted in the past and aggravated by “several very personal traumas”. In prioritising her own well-being above all else, by sequestering from the tumult of the outside world, her fifth album bounds from a place of deeply personal essentiality.

Okovi isn't so much a purgative creative release as it is a feature-length self-exorcism, and the pay-off is a collection of songs that masterfully insist upon survival. From opener and spectral invocation ‘Doma’ to the dramatic 'Exhumed' – an early highlight melding quaking strings, glitching beats and Danilova’s full-blown-pop vocals – each track is an unravelling of layered textures where meditation on the very real trauma of losing loved ones takes centrestage.

But for all its cleansing depth, the strongest moments here don’t stagger or wallow. They attack and grasp for release via refined process and lyrics that sear through fustian with candid, soul-peaking resolve. Written about a family member who attempted suicide and continues to struggles with depression, ‘Siphon’ and ‘Witness’ are perfects cases in point. The luxuriant coil and release of ‘Siphon’ is a real highlight here; the purely orchestral arrangement on ‘Witness’ was for Danivola “a very conscious choice to prevent the song from being too rooted in a temporal context.” On these songs, and on the equally beguiling ‘Soak’ and ‘Wiseblood’ (which posits the hectic hypermodern world beyond the Wisconsin woods as all but ludicrous), it’s unabashed pop balladry that reigns supreme, not impervious goth-pop. Eking out the innate pop sensibility that has threaded her catatonic craft to date, Danilova tempers intensity with a pure accessibility that sees her tread the thin line between arcane and potentially huge.

Running parallel with this crossover appeal is another deal-breaking dichotomy. With Danilova’s authoritative vocals coming to the fore throughout, outright vulnerability and total confidence prove entirely compatible bedfellows here – a fact that goes some distance in marking Okovi out from any number of releases associated with the all-too nebulous realm of hypnagogic pop. While it’s a release that might disengage fans of her more sub-rosa earlier material of yore, Zola Jesus has evolved into an artist where pop – born from a need to mend from trauma or otherwise – is no longer a recurrent secondary descriptor, but a primary one. Danilova has loosened the shackles that have made this remarkable metamorphosis possible.

Share this article:

Pitchfork 83

Okovi showcases the searing, fully-formed music of Nika Danilova, an album of close personal experiences rendered into urgent goth-pop songs as emotional as they are necessary.

The Guardian 80

(Sacred Bones)

Returning to long-term label Sacred Bones after a sojourn at Mute for 2014’s relatively poppy Taiga, Nika Roza Danilova has perfected her hybrid of industrial electronics and gothic power balladry on her fifth album. Bearing aloft a forensic inquiry into mortality and loss on the wings of her formidable voice, she soars from the shuddering strings and chilly wails of Exhumed to the trip-hop grandeur of Soak and the sweeping romanticism of Witness, via Siphon’s warm assurance of unflinching support to a friend on the edge (“We’d rather clean the blood of a living man”). An album to light the way through the darkest hours.

Drowned In Sound 70

Having a familiar sound isn’t necessarily a bad thing, certainly not when you’ve got the enormous opera-trained voice of Danilova. There’s always going to be a place in indie rock for singers with a five note range who sound like they’ve just rolled out of bed, but if you want a singer who can really sing and belt out the high notes as if her life, and yours, depends upon it, Zola Jesus is for you. Danilova pairs her soaring voice with a mostly electronic backing, with mixed results on Okovi. In some places, particularly towards the beginning of the record, the production is varied and brings out the very best in Danilova’s unique voice. ‘Doma’ kicks things off a capella, with multiple strands of Danilova’s voice swirling and spiralling around each other, a very arresting beatless opening which then gives way to the sharp insistent strings of ‘Exhumed’. Again Danilova’s own wordless backing vocals form an interesting backdrop to the lyrics but this time with the urgent violins and pounding martial drums carrying her voice along.

On ‘Soak’, Danilova cries “Take me to the water! You should know I would never let you down!” and she doesn’t. If you’ve heard a Zola Jesus LP before you’ll know exactly what to expect: a voice that soars high enough and majestically enough she could probably use it to rescue any number of hobbits from peril; driving electronic production and some real punch the air moments. And she doesn’t let you down. Not for the first half of the record, anyway.

Unfortunately, Okovi suffers from a fairly serious case of ‘Mid-Album-Slump Syndrome’. The first few tracks are amongst the most urgent and vital that Danilova has recorded since Stridulum II and the LP explodes back into life with ‘Remains’, the penultimate track, but between that things slow down and get bogged down as a result. ‘Ash to Bone’ feels more like an interlude than a song in its own right and it’s followed by ‘Witness’ which continues in the slow and beatless vein, rather killing the momentum that has been built up. On ‘Siphon’ the drums return but they are rather lumpen and don’t provide enough energy for Danilova’s voice to take flight over, or to keep the listener engaged on their own.

It is a pity that where Danilova has tried to experiment with something a bit different to her past few records, something 'heavier, darker and more exploratory', she has produced a few mid-album filler tracks that don’t really reach the same heights as the other more typical Zola Jesus songs. That said there are more than enough high quality, fists-in-the-air, Zola Jesus songs on Okovi to excite the fans. Okovi won’t topple Stridulum II as the most essential Zola Jesus record, but it’s another excellent record that once again showcases a unique and powerful voice.