Zola Jesus is a chanteuse from Indiana who I'm told is one of the leading architects behind some sub genre called Crimson Wave. Excuse me for tryin to wrap my brain around this, but what does that mean? The undertones is certainly ripe w/Freudian connotations, conjurin up both castration anxiety & penis envy. And I know West Lafayette is a college town (go Boilermakers!) so let's leave this one on the shelf for blabbermouths w/majors & electives to concur or refute. So.....Zola Jesus. As charmin as the tape hiss is on this lo fi gem, that voice don't lie; this gal's got some range! Like the aforementiond TV Ghost, Zola Jesus traverses across some gothic terrain, but there's also tinges of Vega/Rev action, Cab Volt twiddle & an almost ESP like understandin've Amy Camus alter ego. Whatever it is, it works. So call it Crimson Wave if you's must, just don't lame up in the process or I will PERSONALLY see to it that Zola Jesus cuts off your balls & feeds them to you for supper. The Woodbe reach can be ruthless, beware.
So then, I begin with two new singles from the die Stasi label, currently presiding in—of all places—Findlay, Ohio. This is the label that unleashed TV Ghost onto the unsuspecting world, and they do the same with Madison, Wisconsin's Zola Jesus. A one-girl juggernaut, and card carrier in the newly-christened Crimson Wave movement consisting of Midwestern, female-dominated bands of "difficulty," Zola Jesus showcases her strong pipes, albeit with heavy effects, atop clanging piano lines and chunky beats. I thought about writing this off as "trying too hard," but these songs are beginning to stick, especially the dramatic "Dog" and its tape-loop backing.
More solo bedroom introspection! Please come up with a better name for it than “shitgaze” though. Dictaphone-quality recordings from Wisconsin synth pin-up, awash in open space and half-voiced sentiments. Fits nicely against the first Pink Reason single, I’d say, but more confident, less intentionally obscure, and kind of average. Goth cabaret for the few. White vinyl.
So now even the ladies are catching the weird wave. More ethereal than most of the boys drone, jerk & squall. Three moody Casio synth on the piano setting based songs that one moment start ya thinking something like Madonna getting heavy into Blues Control and making an album of torch songs under such an influence, others Suicide if Patti Smith sang and were produced by Richard Carpenter after a week long bender (Dunno if Richard Carpenter even drinks...so imagine where his mind would be at on a week long bender either way). Between side one's "The Way" (70's AM soul decaying in a crawlspace) and it's flip "Dog" (swirly and floating in space dream-pop) it's hard to call which one the sad girls of the world would warm up to first but one of them would be a hit in an alternate universe. Somewhere Ivo Watts-Russell (or Siltbreeze) is getting his ink pen that writes only in blood ready and luring Zola Jesus to sign on the dotted line.
It has taken me a while to get into Zola Jesus - basically because I haven’t really given it a lot of time. I got that Die Stasi XXperiments compilation which features a bunch of “Crimson Wave” artists like US Girls, Cro Magnon and the Zola Jesus song on that blows everything else out of the water. This is a collection of four songs recorded live at WNYU plus six unreleased songs.
