Zola Jesus – Krunk

Nika Roza Danilova has been recording and performing as Zola Jesus for more than a decade now.

A classically trained opera singer with a love of 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 synths. More recent releases have seen her exploring her own skewed vision of pop music, with 2017’s ‘Okovi’ being a particular highlight.

Her latest single, ‘Krunk’, is something else entirely.

It’s a cover of an Armenian folk standard, and all proceeds from Bandcamp sales go to the Armenia Fund charity and their efforts to provide humanitarian aid during the country’s ongoing conflict with Azerbaijan.

Zola came across the song while listening to a collection of songs sung by renowned Armenian soprano Lousine Zakarian.

“Her recording was so devastatingly beautiful,” she says. “It evoked so much yearning and sadness, yet at the same time it felt so delicate, like her voice could lift off and fly away. It felt like the purest expression of the ineffable Armenian soul. I never thought I’d be able to do the song justice, and I still don’t, but the song is so meaningful to me that performing it became a compulsion.”

I’ve not heard Zakarian’s version, but Zola’s is devastatingly beautiful. Her voice, backed by simple piano, pins you to the wall, with extra reverb producing a ghostly, chilling effect. There’s a hint of menace, with a soft metallic hiss resonating as the vocals fade, and the track ends with the piano being crushed by an avalanche of white noise, like sheets of harsh metal crashing to the ground.

Jamie Summerfield