常常在店裡聊起「召喚系」音樂人都會想到 Zola Jesus，她歌聲出來十秒內就會感受到吸引，前鎮子在店裡播放 #宇多田《Distance》後放了 Zola Jesus 新歌〈The Fall〉，瞬間讓我們從「召喚系女聲」變成直接叫她「宇多田暗」，雖然只是日常唱片行的垃圾話，但不能否認新專輯《ARKHON》裡有些狀態真的很像黑化過的宇多田。
新專輯《#ARKHON》近日在小白兔上架，在這張專輯的創作途中第一次被自己習慣於音樂、形象上全權打造的狀態感到無力感，與自己纏鬥後始終無解，讓她首次卸除了以往習慣的武裝狀態，找來 Sunn O))) 的製作人 Randall Dunn 一起打理，也找了曾與 Fiona Apple、Bob Dylan 和 David Bowie 合作過的樂手助陣，學會放手的 Zola Jesus 在這新血狀態下成功的讓她專屬的黑暗昇華，這是張至今最動聽的作品。
There is a way a voice can cut through the fascia of reality, cleaving through habit into the raw nerve of experience. Nika Roza Danilova, the singer, songwriter, and producer who since 2009 has released music as Zola Jesus, wields a voice that does that. When you hear it, it is like you are being summoned -- not to somewhere new, but to a place that already wrapped inside you, somewhere previously obscured from conscious experience. This place has been buried because it tends to hold pain, but its also a gift, because once its opened, once youre inside of it, it can show you the truth.
Zola Jesus new album, Arkhon, finds new ways of losing that submerged, stalled pain. Not long after she had started writing the songs that would comprise the record, Danilova found herself stuck in a creative barrens, a spell of writer block more stifling than any shed experienced before. "It got to the point where I couldnt even listen to music. Everything sounded the same," she says.
On previous albums, Danilova had largely played the role of auteur, meticulously crafting every aspect of Zola Jesus 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 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 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. His daring, askance patterning would come to help define the sound of the record. Relinquishing a degree of control over her music and hearing others contribute to it began to thaw the creative block that had kept her from working. "I felt that I was able to finally hear my music in a context that was broader than what I could do on my own," Danilova says. "Im letting people interpret my musical ideas and my songs in a way that is supporting everything, but also expanding it into a sound that I never would have been able to think of on my own. That was so rewarding to hear."
Despite the darkness curled inside reality, there is power, too, in surrendering to what cant be pinned down, to the wild unfurling of the world in all its unforeseeable motion. That letting go is the crux of Arkhon, which marks a new way of moving and making for Zola Jesus. "There is a moment where you stop fighting with yourself. That when things can really happen," Danilova says. "I was disarmed in a way where I just let the process make the record. I could enjoy being in the moment, putting that into the music and letting it unravel or evolve in its own way. To let it have its own story that I only had a part in telling."
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