ZOLA JESUS: new album
RELEASE DATE CHANGE: Due to an unforeseen issue at the pressing plant Zola Jesus forthcoming new album Arkhon will now be released on June 24th on all formats.
Zola Jesus will now release her first new album in five years, ‘Arkhon‘, on June 24th via Sacred Bones Records. Nika Roza Danilova, the singer, songwriter, and producer who since 2009 has released music as Zola Jesus, has previously shared singles “Lost” & “Desire” from the forthcoming album.
Listen to “Lost” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuHX6QiAiuE
Listen to “Desire” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYH2ARo7DPY
On previous albums, Danilova had largely played the role of auteur, meticulously crafting every aspect of Zola Jesus’s sound and look. This time, she realized that her habitual need for control was sealing her out of her art.
When the frustration of being unable to create became intolerable, she took a leap of faith and reached out for help, something she had never done this early in an album’s lifetime. “At some point, I had to work with other people. I needed new blood. I needed somebody else.”
Danilova sent her demos to producer Randall Dunn, known for his work with Sunn O))) and on Jóhann Jóhannsson’s score for the film Mandy. She also began collaborating with drummer and percussionist Matt Chamberlain, whose prior work appears on albums by Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan, and David Bowie.
“When I look back at my work, I see there’s a theme where I fixate on my fear of the unknown,” says Danilova. “That really came into fruition for this record, because I had to let go of so much control. I had to surrender to whatever the outcome would be. That used to be really hard for me, and now I had no other choice.”
In her creative process, Danilova instead began forging a relationship with the unknown. Rather than try to hold Arkhon in its entirety at every moment of its creation, she began focusing on the direct experience of making work with others, allowing for spontaneous moments of unselfconscious play.
After over a decade of classical voice training, she found that this shift enabled her to ease into her singing voice in new ways, leading her to greater flexibility and agility. “I had gone through a deeply transformational process of inner growth. That annihilated a lot of tension in my voice, because my whole attachment to things changed,” she says.
Arkhon unearths buried tools for bearing grief, loss, and disappointment. The album’s title means “power” or “ruler” in ancient Greek, but it also has a specific valence within Gnosticism.
“Arkons are a Gnostic idea of power wielded through a flawed god,” says Danilova. “They taint and tarnish humanity, keeping them corrupted instead of letting them find their harmonious selves. I do feel like we are living in an arkhonic time; these negative influences are weighing extremely heavy on all of us. We’re in a time of arkhons. There’s power in naming that.”
Arkhon artwork:
Arkhon tracklist:
1. Lost (YouTube)
2. The Fall
3. Undertow
4. Into The Wild
5. Dead and Gone
6. Sewn
7. Desire (YouTube)
8. Fault
9. Efemra
10. Do That Anymore
Arkhon is set for release June 24th and available for pre-order here on multiple limited edition LP variants through Sacred Bones, Bandcamp and various independent retailers, as well as on CD and cassette.
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