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The American singer-songwriter and producer cultivates dense atmospheres and a changeable mood that has led her to collaborate with Dean Hurley (David Lynch’s collaborator), J.G Thirlwell (pioneer of experimental industrial music), M83, and Former Ghosts. Invoking electro-gothic spirits for nearly 20 years, she draws inspiration from pop, lo-fi, and cold wave, in a perpetual desire for renewal and artistic curiosity. To learn more about her journey, I spoke briefly with this unconventional artist, who wants to bring her own universe to life.
Zola Jesus is on stage Thursday September 25, Sala Rossa, 8PM
PAN M 360 : Coming from classical training, you started crafting a musical journey of avant-garde pop. What draws you to these unconventional and often dark soundscapes?
Zola Jesus : That’s a good question because I would like to know as well! (haha). It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a long time. It’s not on purpose, that’s for sure! I’m just drowning in the depths of the darkness in a sense, it’s always been that way.I think there is just a need in me to understand the unseen parts of myself, and that comes through my music. Sometimes I try to be “not so interested” in these things, because they can be isolating or alienating, but I just can’t help myself, so I always come back to it.
PAN M 360: You appeared with lo-fi quality vibe albums (The Spoils, etc), showcasing your powerful voice, with time evolving toward a more polished sound (Taiga, etc). You can go everywhere and anywhere with your production, from opera to electro, you are always seeking something different it seems. What fuels you to go in a new direction?
Zola Jesus : Maybe I get bored very easily! (haha). When I make an album, I really mind the caves of that experience, of that sound, that atmosphere. And so, when I make a new record, I almost want to do the opposite. I did the darkness… What if I make things very clear and clean? And then I get bored of that also so I’m like : “OK, I want to play with textures now!.” It’s basically just evolving from one extreme to the next.
PAN M 360 : What are you wanting to experiment, musically within these everchanging directions?How does this exploration of the extremes impact your art?
Zola Jesus : Well it keeps me really hungry because if I keep on making the same things over and over it starts to feel kind of stale…then I go, “this is easy for me, I can do this.” When I go in another direction, it’s a challenge for me as I have to learn a whole new way of making music and a whole new way of expressing myself, a whole new palette that I am unfamiliar with. It’s keeping me on my toes, keeping me curious. I like to challenge myself and go out of my comfort zone.
PAN M 360 : You are very passionate about visual arts and their imbrication within your pieces, what binds the two together for you?
Zola Jesus : For me, I always feel like I’m creating sound for a space, so sound can not exist in a vacuum. And especially my training in opera, which is an acoustic way of singing, you need space to be heard so for me the space is very important. What does that space look like, sounds like, smells like? How do you feel when you are inside of it? And so when I create music I’m creating music for a space, whether it’s just an atmosphere or an image or even a building (haha). It could be anything. There’s always something visual, immersive attached to the sound. For example on Arkhon, it felt very much like being in a cave, in an ancient prehistoric cave. Each of the songs kind of explored their landscapes in their own way.
PAN M 360 : You are particularly engaged with societal, spiritual and emotional topics, particularly on Arkhon. Is it part of your journey to try to help/heal listeners?
Zola Jesus : Yeah it’s strange because this was never an intention originally but I think that by nature, my music is very soulful, it’s about feelings. There’s also this feeling of wanting to connect with others. I’m a really big introvert so I always feel like connecting with people, while it also comes very naturally to me can also be a challenge. So to me, it is also my way to connect to the universe, to this humanity who connects us all, even to total strangers. That’s why I love music, you get to have a conversation with the world, with humanity and I do feel there’s also this “empathic” quality to my music. I wanna hold space that I am going through but also connect that to universal struggles and experiences.
PAN M 360 : What are your main artistic inspirations ? Do you find other artists who you resonate with, on a similar path ?
Zola Jesus : I love Maria Callas, she’s one of my greatest idols. Just her dedication to her art is really inspiring to me. Marina Abromovitch, a performance artist, and the way she distills her own experiences and her culture as well as pushing up against her comfort zone makes her art very inspiring to me as well. Musically, I would say one of my heroes is Diamanda Galas, who was very uncompromising and who has created her own universe with her music : there’s no one else like her.
PAN M 360 : What are you looking for in your collaborations? I know the Canadian Joanne Pollock is someone you like to go back to?
Zola Jesus : I like to work with people who I respect, like Joanne, and who can challenge me and put me in different contexts. That’s really fun for me because I create in a vacuum, my process is so solitary that collaborations are a way for me to grow and to try on other people’s processes and creative ideas, to find myself in these ideas.
PAN M 360 : What would you like to accomplish, within your life as a creator?
Zola Jesus : My ultimate goal is to do something like writing an opera, to be able to express all the different emotions and musical ideas that do not really fit into a pop or a rock album. I would also like to have a show that is very audio-visual, because so far in my career I have never been able to have a big visual show, it’s always been very conservative because that’s what I can afford.
PAN M 360 : A little word for Montreal’s fans before passing by this week?
Zola Jesus : I can not wait to come back to Montreal! I actually was living there for a little bit because my husband was living there for a very long time, so I have a lot of friends in Montreal. I love it so much, if I could move there I would! Je parle un peu français…mais pas bien! (haha)
