In an August 2010 article in London's The Guardian titled Will Zola Jesus herald the second coming of goth?, Sam Richards compared Nika Rosa Danilova, aka Zola Jesus, to "an imperious ice queen in the Siouxsie/Diamanda mould who's currently making music bloggers go weak at the knees."
"Though swathed in eldritch atmospherics, Zola Jesus's songs pack a brutal, emotional punch, rendering the genteel witchery-woo of Florence + The Machine and Bat For Lashes a tad twee by comparison. Danilova worships David Cronenberg and 1970s Italian horror, but says her plangent gloom-pop is influenced as much by Rihanna as it is by Bauhaus."
We last saw Zola Jesus during Rocktober 2011, when The Earl had a remarkable week of shows that included Zola, St. Vincent, and a double-bill of Austra and Grimes. Our paths were not to cross again until last night, when she performed at the luminous Terminal West. First, though, Atlanta's Death Domain opened.
Their set started at 8:30, just as we walked in the front door, which was a bit surprising as the show was advertised as "Doors 8:00, Show 9:00" but also cool as there was no awkward waiting around for the show to begin. We had time to get a beer and a spot one row back from the stage as their first song began.
Fun fact: Death Domain were at one point Nika's backup band for an earlier, 2009 edition of Zola Jesus (i.e., The Spoils era).
Death Domain is Billy Ruben, who has apparently relocated to Baltimore, and last night the band included Ruben on keyboards and voice, a backup keyboardist, and a violinist. Their music was satisfyingly dark and gothic, "as bleak as anything recorded during the lows of the Reagan years" according to one of Ruben's favorite reviews. Ruben himself looked the part, in a leather jacket with off-center zipper and Gary-Numan-meets-Robert-Smith hair, and the music sounded like what you'd expect to hear at an after-midnight goth party.
Next up was former Dirty Projector Angel Deradoorian, performing with one other musician as the band Deradoorian. Angel left the Projectors before 2012's Swing Lo Magellan, and we didn't see her with the band during their 2012 tour in support of that album, but we did catch her in 2011 at Alpharetta, Georgia's sponsored amphitheater opening for Animal Collective, and at the godforsaken Masquerade as a member of Avey Tare's Slasher flicks.
Back in 2011, when she opened for Animal Collective, Angel played solo, seated behind an electric piano. Last night, she played keyboards and occasional bass guitar, and stood facing across from the other performer on stage with her, who mostly played percussion and provided backing vocals, such that her back was to me for most of the set.
Deradoorian's set relied heavily on looped passages of the drums and vocals for their rhythmic underpinnings over which she added keys and vocals into fascinating compositions that touched at times on tribalism and world beat, uplifting psychedelic rock a la Animal Collective, and swirling, mesmerizing folk rock. It was by far he best post-Projectors stuff that I've heard from her, and I'm looking forward to hearing more. Here's a small sample:
According to her Soundcloud profile, Angel "is currently living in Los Angeles and working on an album inspired by singing and the space in which sound can reside." Do not miss her, with or without Zola Jesus, if you have a chance to hear her perform.
Apparently, some people were there just to hear Deradoorian, as the folks in the row in front of us left immediately after her performance, leaving the front row open. We grabbed a spot on the rail for Zola Jesus' set.
This video isn't necessarily my favorite Zola Jesus song (I have to admit that after all these years, it's still her encore closer Vessel) but it does pretty effectively capture her movements and dancing during her live show. According to StereoGum, "Nika Roza Danilova just has to stand in a bare warehouse and strike some dramatic poses while a camera flies around her, and it’s pretty much game over."
Her backing instrumentation was rather unusual, even by quirky electro-goth standards, consisting of a powerhouse drummer, keyboards, and trombone. Somehow, it all worked and even sounded great, and gave a refreshing new spin on standard Zola Jesus material like Sea Talk.
But the main attraction at a Zola Jesus show is and always will be the amazing, force-of-nature voice of Zola or Nika or whatever you want to call her, an operatic alto that can fill a room even without a microphone. In fact, at one point in the show, she sang solo and unamplified, allowing her voice to reverberate through the Terminal West space, reminiscent of her recent outdoor performance during last week's snow emergency in New York, where she was one of the few performers not to cancel her scheduled set and took her set out onto the snow-clogged street.
But the main attraction at a Zola Jesus show is and always will be the amazing, force-of-nature voice of Zola or Nika or whatever you want to call her, an operatic alto that can fill a room even without a microphone. In fact, at one point in the show, she sang solo and unamplified, allowing her voice to reverberate through the Terminal West space, reminiscent of her recent outdoor performance during last week's snow emergency in New York, where she was one of the few performers not to cancel her scheduled set and took her set out onto the snow-clogged street.
Other fun moments: just like she did at The Earl back in 2011, at one point she wandered down into the audience while continuing to sing, brushing against as many people as possible, and at another point, she walked to the edge of the stage and touched hands with those in the front row, including your humble narrator. She gave a shout-out to Atlanta native Killer Mike and his latest project Run The Jewels (in related news, she's allegedly a contributor to a remix album of Run The Jewels being produced for charity), and at another time, stood on a folding chair to belt out some particularly powerful lines.
The stage set included several iceberg-like, geometric sculptures, possibly the inspiration for this Zola Jesus portrait:
The set ended with a two-song encore, concluding with the aforementioned Vessel.
In a 2013 interview, Nika said, "I was mostly inspired by experimental music because it showed me a canvas for what you can create. Bands like The Residents, Throbbing Gristle and Diamanda Galás were really exciting. I loved Bikini Kill and Kathleen Hanna so much – she was such a spitfire and did whatever she wanted. , , With books, my favorite author is Philip K Dick. I’ve basically read everything he’s ever written, which is a lot. He just had the most amazing view on the world and he completely changed me in the way that Nietzsche has, or any philosopher has." Earlier today, she re-tweeted this picture from NYC.
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