Zola Jesus

Schwuuz, Berlin

It’s Tuesday night of a chilly spring beginning as we enter the concrete setting of Neukolln’s SchwuZ club. The room awaits the opening ripples of Zola Jesus’s operatic, melodramatic goth-pop.

But first, blue-lit smoke wanders through the thickening crowd, heralding the opening act, Berlin’s M.E.S.H, and a stage installation resembling ice crystals compliments the frosted air. The musician, affiliated with Berlin’s PAN label, begins with dark experimental laser dub, tracing elements of hip-hop, grime, and everything synthetic and syncopated between. There’s a front row of heads forming, bowing down, a sinister and cold atmosphere setting a precedent.

Following a pause, Zola Jesus, born Nika Danilova, enters the stage in a black smock, silver accents on her fingers and wrists, arms uplifted in an orchestral invitation, her long dark hair dipped in light. She starts with her recent, pop-tinted Dangerous Days, a lighter prospect than much of her work, accompanied by the synths of her keyboard player. The evening wavers through various flavours of power and potency, that clearly trained and nurtured voice acting as guide.

  • © Markus Werner

A trombone player is part of the repertoire, smuggling voodoo magic in spurts, into the spirit of the night. The drummer pounds, with toms, bass drums and synthetic pads somehow surviving his rhythmic rage. At several points Zola, the wild child, falls into a frenzy, shaking and darting across the stage in a gothic compliment to the darker compositions; confession, catharsis. It’s a feral, primal display, fitting of an individual of Russian descent, raised on more than 100 acres of forest in Wisconsin.

As her voice belts, so cold and simultaneously warm, so powerful, at one point she surrenders the microphone and sings acapella, with only the venue’s natural reverb as eerie accompaniment. At another she rushes off stage through the crowd, serenading couples and individuals, filling every open, untouched nook.

Back onstage, two encores take place. The loaded, industrial Vessel’s sorrowful force is one of them. She departs, hair flicking, mouthing “danke schon…” Tonight is a moving, unforgettable success of a new invocation of an ancient spirit of female expression. Thank you, Zola Jesus.