Emily Korn
Nika Roza Danilova is a bona fide avant-garde rock star with a cosmopolitan sensibility.
2010 was a pretty good year for Nika Roza Danilova. She put out two EPs under the stage name Zola Jesus, toured internationally to rave reviews and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Five years later, the Merrill, Wis., native is a bona fide avant-garde rock star with a cosmopolitan sensibility that defies her rural roots.
“I’ve always had music in my life,” Danilova says, who trained in opera as a child. “You kind of create this momentum by just going out and doing it. So, if you make a record, you start playing shows and playing with friends, and you end up touring.”
Throughout her time at UW, where she studied French and philosophy, Danilova recorded in her basement and frequently performed at local venues, including the now-defunct Project Lodge. She now lives in Washington state and returns Sept. 24 to play at the Wisconsin Union Theater.
Featuring striking onstage visual presentations and Danilova’s operatic voice, the Zola Jesus band includes two other musicians from Wisconsin: Daniel Eaton, a trombone player, and Alex DeGroot, a synth wizard who has played with Danilova “since almost the beginning.” Michael Pinaud, a musician she met in Los Angeles, plays drums.
The experimental electronic outfit evolved during Danilova’s time here. “It was nice because Madison is so small it allowed me to focus on what I had to do with no distractions,” she told Isthmus in 2010. “It helped reinforce my own values and what was important to me.”
Zola Jesus has since performed in such storied spaces as the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Hirshhorn Museum, the Smithsonian’s contemporary art palace in Washington, D.C.
While touring, Danilova takes advantage of cultural offerings, such as viewing minimalist sculptor Richard Serra’s work at the Gagosian Gallery in London. In a recent interview with Isthmus, she spoke about the influence of architecture on her music.
“I like that it’s man’s control over environment. It’s like creating a microcosm. When you create the structure, you create the confines of the world,” says Danilova. “As a musician, I really revere architecture because it’s like the physical universe that the music can exist within. Sometimes I’ll see a building and I’ll think of music that would live inside of that building.”