Brandon’s been doing too much of the talking so AudioVole becomes a girls’ club this week (hurray!). Sarah Braunstein and Rchl Brwn “sit down” to discuss Zola Jesus’ latest release, Conatus. Sarah and Rchl have never actually met so reading this dialectic should be kind of like witnessing a blind date unfold (that is, if your blind date is a real asshole and only wants to talk about another woman).
Zola Jesus – “Vessel”
Full album stream plus song by song breakdown from Zola Jesus here.
From: Sarah Braunstein
To: Rchl Brwn
Last Tuesday, Zola Jesus released her third full-length album Conatus (via Sacred Bones) following 2009’s The Spoils and last year’s Stridulum II. For those not familiar with Nika Roza Danilova, the petite (and young!) Russian-American powerhouse behind the Zola Jesus name, get thee to her site and take in a few of her earlier singles. And then come back here.
Rchl, I think Brandon mentioned that he introduced you to Zola Jesus a while back and you took to it. This is essentially everything I know about you since we’ve never spoken before! But even with that minutia of information, it’s clear we have at least one thing in common (the ZJ-liking, that is).
Always a little late to the party, I acquired both The Spoils and Stridulum at the same time early this year. It was when there seemed to be enough doom and gloom in mainstream indie rock that folks were slapping labels like “witch house” on every mildly dark act coming through the album release turnstiles. And we learned that Ellen Page liked the stuff. But Zola Jesus never seemed particularly witchy or goth-rock to me despite her interest in the aesthetics of apocalypse ( or, as Danilova has said, “everyone just running around in anarchy and crying and throwing up over each other”).
Sure, Danilova might’ve dropped “devil” in one or two of her song lyrics but the darkness was never the point; it’s just what came out of Danilova when she sat down to create music (and it’s all we could really hear through that lo-fi production). In The Spoils, I heard the downbeat lo-fi tracks of an artist unafraid to experiment with layering gritty (and sometimes unpleasant) samples; an artist who single-handedly produced impressively confident work despite her age, resources, etc. I listened and could picture the 19-year old Danilova working alone in her parents’ basement to record, sift, and compile her first full-length throughout an enduring rural Wisconsin winter. And then came Stridulum, complete with some poppy lightness that I felt compelled to play on repeat. I’m more than a sucker for pop music.
But on Conatus, we can hear so much more of the depth and dexterity that Danilova always possessed as a classically trained musician that was never realized on previous albums. Conatus sounds like a complete, free-standing album from an artist finally given a set of tools that match the caliber of her talent (thanks for doing that, Sacred Bones). And Zola Jesus takes advantage of this newly found production wealth by expanding her stylistic range. We still have tracks, like “Avalanche,” that sound like they could fit in on Stridulum. But then we get a little bit of “Zola the Diva” on “Seekir,” a driving track that would feel at home on the playlist of a really cool dance party (I’d like to be invited to that party, k thanks) and “Skin,” a slow and stripped down ballad featuring just Danilova’s voice, clear and strong, with light piano accompaniment.
OK, I’ve got a lot more to say but I’ll let you get a word in edgewise, Rchl. What’s your take on Conatus so far? And isn’t it awesome that we finally kicked all the boys out of AudioVole? It’s just you, me, and Zola at this slumber party.
“If it’s in your nature, you’ll never win,”
Sarah
Get Conatus here:
Sacred Bones Records | Insound Vinyl | Amazon
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