Uploaded February 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Nika Roza Danilova has been recording and performing as Zola Jesus for more than a decade. As a classically trained opera singer with a penchant for noisy, avant-garde sounds, she launched her career with a series of lo-fi releases that pitted her soaring vocals against harsh industrial clatter and jittery synths. The signature Zola Jesus sound became more hi-fi as she began to explore her own skewed vision of pop music on releases like Stridulum, Valusia, and Conatus. With the release of Conatus, Danilova was propelled to regular appearances on festival stages all around the world, as well as a special performance at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. That era culminated in the release of Versions, a collection of string quartet interpretations of her most beloved work, conducted by J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus). That album and subsequent tour were followed by her most hi-fi outing to date, Taiga. Now, coinciding with her return to both the Wisconsin woods in which she was raised and her longtime label, Sacred Bones Records, Zola Jesus has produced Okovi, her darkest album yet. It is, in Danilova’s words, “a deeply personal snapshot of loss, reconciliation, and a sympathy for the chains that keep us all grounded to the unforgiving laws of feral nature.”
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Depression
Dissecting sections of her creative process from an emotional and technical standpoint
Creative resourcefulness
Identity
Her thoughts on constructing honest lyrics
Yoshino and Zola Jesus’s collaboration together
Kindred spirits in collaborative creative partners
Exploring morbid curiosities and ideas surrounded around death
Understanding human suffering
Collaborating with David Lynch
Finding your own path
Resilience through failure
Zola's Website:
zolajesus.com
Artist Decoded Patreon:
patreon.com/artistdecoded
Originally Posted 7.30.17
Nika Roza Danilova has been recording and performing as Zola Jesus for more than a decade. As a classically trained opera singer with a penchant for noisy, avant-garde sounds, she launched her career with a series of lo-fi releases that pitted her soaring vocals against harsh industrial clatter and jittery synths. The signature Zola Jesus sound became more hi-fi as she began to explore her own skewed vision of pop music on releases like Stridulum, Valusia, and Conatus. With the release of Conatus, Danilova was propelled to regular appearances on festival stages all around the world, as well as a special performance at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. That era culminated in the release of Versions, a collection of string quartet interpretations of her most beloved work, conducted by J.G. Thirlwell (Foetus). That album and subsequent tour were followed by her most hi-fi outing to date, Taiga. Now, coinciding with her return to both the Wisconsin woods in which she was raised and her longtime label, Sacred Bones Records, Zola Jesus has produced Okovi, her darkest album yet. It is, in Danilova’s words, “a deeply personal snapshot of loss, reconciliation, and a sympathy for the chains that keep us all grounded to the unforgiving laws of feral nature.”
Topics Discussed In This Episode:
Depression
Dissecting sections of her creative process from an emotional and technical standpoint
Creative resourcefulness
Identity
Her thoughts on constructing honest lyrics
Yoshino and Zola Jesus’s collaboration together
Kindred spirits in collaborative creative partners
Exploring morbid curiosities and ideas surrounded around death
Understanding human suffering
Collaborating with David Lynch
Finding your own path
Resilience through failure
Zola's Website:
zolajesus.com
Artist Decoded Patreon:
patreon.com/artistdecoded
Originally Posted 7.30.17
