Bleep

Okovi marks the return of Zola Jesus to Sacred Bones with her first recordings for the label in over half a decade. Returning to the fold armed with a fresh focus, Okovi looks back heavily to her previous Sacred material, while forging ahead with the musical skill and artistic intent that she has continuously amounted since New Amsterdam back in 2009.

Compiled of eleven tracks ripe with her usual array of electronics, Okovi was written in a proclaimed sense of 'pure catharsis' that has led to a blue undercurrent running through the intense, sonic frequencies that hold the music together. While it is entirely Zola's vision, she calls on the talent of Alex DeGroot, producer/musician WIFE, cellist/noise-maker Shannon Kennedy from Pedestrian Deposit, and percussionist Ted Byrnes to help build up the albums textural focus.

A deeply personal set of recordings in every respect, Zola explains that whilst recording Okovi "I endured people very close to me trying to die, and others trying desperately not to. Meanwhile, I was fighting through a haze so thick I wasn’t sure I’d find my way to the other side. Death, in all of its masks, has been encircling everyone I love, and with it the questions of legacy, worth, and will".

Okovi (a Slavic word for shackles) is described as "a personal snapshot of loss, reconciliation, and a sympathy for the chains that keep us all grounded to the unforgiving laws of nature" and while it may have come to life out of times of trouble, Zola's artistic view finds the music acting as a song for siren, one that shows strength and a sense of resistance that ultimately finds light through an endless downpour of darkness and rain.