Last week, Zola Jesus’ Nika Rosa Danilova announced her fourth studio LP Taiga with an airy teaser video, and now she’s returned with the first single from that record — “Dangerous Days” — plus an October release date and some further details about the record’s origins.
Heard below, the new song relies on swooning synth arpeggios and crisp drums to provide a spacious bed for her typically bombastic vocal lines. Zola’s pushing further and further away from her abstract roots into more straightforward pop territories, landing somewhere near her former Sacred Bones labelmates Lust For Youth or even Kate Bush’s dazzling synth-pop acrobatics.
In a press release, Danilova explained that the title for the follow-up to 2011’s Conatus comes from the “feral, untapped” forests in Northern Wisconsin (where she was raised) and Russia (where her ancestors are from), though it was recorded on Vashon Island, Washington. She also noted that this long-player “feels like [her] true debut, because it is the first time [she] felt so open and liberated.”
You can hear “Dangerous Days” here. Taiga is out October 7 in the United States and October 6 in the rest of the world on Mute.
