Zola Jesus announces sixth album, ‘Arkhon’, and shares first single

Zola Jesus has announced her first album in five years, ‘Arkhon’, and shared a new single – you can hear it below.

According to a press release , ‘Lost’ is a first taste of a change in direction for the artist, real name Nika Roza Danilova. “At some point, I had to work with other people,” she said of eschewing her previously insular creative process. “I needed new blood. I needed somebody else.” Accordingly, she brought in Randall Dunn to handle production duties, whilst Matt Chamberlain – a studio veteran who’s played for everybody from Fiona Apple to Bob Dylan – was on drums. 

“When I look back at my work, I see there’s a theme where I fixate on my fear of the unknown,” said Danilova. “That really came into fruition for this record, because I had to let go of so much control. I had to surrender to whatever the outcome would be. That used to be really hard for me, and now I had no other choice.” The album is out via Sacred Bones on May 20th.

Still, Danilova’s progression as a songwriter has not involved an exorcism of the demons at the core of past Zola Jesus records; she’s chosen to embrace it, rather than ignore it, with the album’s title meaning ‘power’ or ‘ruler’ in ancient Greek. “Arkons are a Gnostic idea of power wielded through a flawed god,” she explained. “They taint and tarnish humanity, keeping them corrupted instead of letting them find their harmonious selves. I do feel like we are living in an arkhonic time; these negative influences are weighing extremely heavy on all of us. We’re in a time of arkhons. There’s power in naming that.”

This new angle has also lent itself to ‘Lost’. “Everyone I know is lost,” says Danilova of the track’s meaning. “Lost hope, lost future, lost present, lost planet. There is a collective disillusionment of our burning potential. As we stray further from nature, we drift from ourselves. ‘Lost’  is a sigil to re-discover our coordinates and claim a new path.”