Elisabeth Wilson went to yet another awesome show in Portland. Here’s her take on Zola Jesus at Holocene on July 25th.
I went to see Zola Jesus last Sunday night (despite being in the final throws of a fever) just to see what all the cool kids were talking about. Twenty-one year old Nika Roza Danilova trained as an opera singer before morphing into her present form as noise/electronic/goth songwriter and chanteuse. On Sunday night, she performed with one other boy on synth and beats and paced the stage a little bit like a caged animal while singing at the top of her lungs. Her melodies and manner kind of remind me of Cyndi Lauper but her voice is eerily (wonderfully) similar to Siouxsie Sioux. She performed songs from her 2010 Ep Stridulum on Sacred Bones Records, including “Night,” which you can see here:
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM8fEP8FOqE 425×344]
[Elisabeth left out the part about how the singer chose to end her show by getting down into the audience and dramatically smashing a beer bottle on the ground. Theatrics!! ]
Here’s another video. Just for fun.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhwd7mqsCws&feature=related 425×344]
