the obvious and the obscure pt. 1

the obvious and the obscure pt. 1

zola jesus - sink the dynasty

there have been a few releases lately that i find more than just entertaining. nika roza danilova alter ego zola jesus created one of them. nika started singing at a pretty young age and decided to get classical opera training for her voice. when she took a break from that she started experimenting with lo-fi noise pop. being able to perfectly control her voice is one of the pluses of zola jesus’ music but it is the combination of great pop tunes played in a lo-fi way based on or highlighted by a few industrial like sounds and her distanced vocals that create this beautifully cold and eerie atmosphere. there’s nothing of opera in here. it’s more a modern version of early post punk wave bands like siouxsie and the banshees, malaria or x-mal deutschland. but still it is far from being retro.


zola jesus myspace


vv brown – crying blood

vv brown took me a while to get into. even though it is far easier accessible than the zola jesus stuff. but crying blood was an instant hit. it is the prelude to her debut album “travelling like light”. vanessa brown is a multi-instrumentalist and wrote the majority of the songs herself what seems to be rare for an island recording artist first signed by puff daddy. but maybe i’m just pre-occupied here.
nevertheless her music seems to be the antithesis of zola jesus’ work. it it passionate and cheerful. id i had to describe it i’d say: what the pipettes tried to do minus the white mediocrity of the brighton band. vv brown is the 50s girl group revival in a single person. her music commutes between her soul influences and her post punk attitude. but all without the remi nicole “i am black but i like rock music” crap that is an insult to chuck berry and all the pre-elvis rock’n’roll artists.

vv brown myspace


ps.: i tried to include vv browns video (go to youtube instead) but blogspot had another technical difficulty. it’s been quite often lately and it makes me question the software in use. maybe they should open the option of imbedding videos from youtube and the likes.