Haven’t you noticed recently how we seem to be drowning in music press articles about how fabulous it is that there are so many females singing their hearts out in an emotional manner in music at the moment? Occasionally you might get a slight variation like ‘fabulous females with their synths’ or ‘fabulous females with their meaningful lyrics’. Anyone else bored of that? Do we really need five hundred Adele clones, all hoping desperately that they’re not Duffy clones?
Why complain, you may ask? After all, that is pop music, and pop music can be left to its own devices. Kind of, but what if the craze for slightly dull warbling and rip offs of La Roux are drowning out other female pop voices? In that case we should complain, or at the very least drag as many people as possible out to an evening with EMA or Zola Jesus. Or both.
As tour line ups go this must surely go down as one of the treats of the year. Ostensibly they’re both pretty different. EMA’s album is wash of guitar noise and alternately angry and sarcastically humourous preacherwoman pulpit talks. Zola Jesus on the other hand seems to be broadcasting from a cave full of Depeche Mode’s darkest moments and Neil Gaiman comics. But spotted live it’s quite obvious that actually by Erika M. Anderson and Nika Roza Danilova are popstars. Ok, they’re popstars from a slightly different universe to one we are, sadly, stranded in, but popstars nevertheless.
Don’t be fooled by EMA kicking off with a big droning noise. It’s merely a decoy, a trap to distract you from the shaman (shawoman?) and her songs of small town alienation and despair. ‘Anteroom‘ roars into view from the fug of noise, more muscular and urgent than on record. ‘Grey Ship‘ follows in even more epic fashion, its borderline postrock coda sends Anderson thrashing around the stage as the audience gawp in wonderment. It’s a preamble to further hypnotically odd behaviours, like introducing ‘Butterfly Knife’ by uttering “yes” and “no” into the mic between bouncing it off her own head, and then ending said song with a cathartic “Only God can make this right”. It’s makes for an odd singalong moment, but that’s exactly what it is.
The stage is tiny, which is probably why EMA finds herself tangled up in her cables within moments, causing mic stands and effects pedals to teeter and sway perilously with every sweep of her guitar. Discarding said instrument for a rumble through Violent Femmes’ ‘Add It Up’ doesn’t make things safer, instead it offers Erika a chance to stamp her authority all over the crowd with a timely walk around the Kazimier. And by ‘stamp her authority’ your intrepid scribe can claim that more literally than others as it was my toe which got a mild stamping from her, which technically means she owns me now. No complaints here, or from anyone else, as the front row of the crowd dutifully moved stage furniture around as cables got increasingly tangled, and even the slightly startled looking girl who was dragged onstage to do a dance seemed willing despite her shock. Not that you can ever count on a Scouse crowd to be completely reverent – it was nice of EMA to dedicate a Danzig cover to the two Nicks in her band, plus Nika Zola Jesus, but it did result in the crowd bellowing “Nick!” between songs for the rest of the gig.
Perhaps the best testament to Anderson’s spell came from the last song. ‘California’ is less a song and more the rant you always suspected 90s cartoon hero Daria would go on if she could ever find the energy. Sweary, heartfelt, impassioned and lyrically challenging (does Adele sing about the problems of rural teenage homosexuals?), the fact it works as an anthem is all down to Anderson’s charisma and sheer popstar power. It’s easy to get a crowd worked up over a simple three chord power ballad about love, to do it over a fuzzy wave of sound and lyrics like “I saw Grandpa carrying the gun/I saw Grandma carrying the gun”, now that’s worth writing four thousand boring press articles about.
In truth a support act like EMA can slightly overshadow the main attraction, and if Zola Jesus doesn’t quite hit the same heights it’s not her fault. It’s certainly not for lack of energy, and if anything Danilova beats Anderson in the exploration stakes, choosing to invade not just the audience, but also the upper levels of the venue, clambering over the back of the stage. As petit and dainty as Anderson is tall and strutting, Zola Jesus looks almost ghostly. There’s no sense of danger as she dangles over the edge of stage as surely even if she did fall she would merely float back down to where her incongruous band of synth botherers (seemingly comprised of a hipster, a punk, a geek and Animal from the Muppets on drums,allwearing very warm looking leather jackets) are teasing out a dark rave.
Recent interviews with Danilova have seen her talking about how her new album, ‘Conatus‘, is more pop than its predecessor, usually accompanied by the journalists opining that she must be daft because it doesn’t sound all that pop. But live it’s easier to see where she gets that idea from. This is definitely pop music, albeit filtered through some dark dark places. The beats and bass are cranked up a notch on all tracks, but not to the detriment of Zola Jesus’s powerful voice nor the shimmering melodies. ‘In Your Nature’ for one has a fairly classic pop anthem build up, starting slow with just voice and some synthesised strings, before in kick the drums and it’s arms in the air time for the crowd. Likewise ‘Vessel’s chugging swagger and the power-ballad-in-a-hailstorm epics of ‘Run Me Out’ are echoes of standard pop hits, which suggests that Danilova has studied pop, wants to write pop, but just can’t help filtering it through her own, mysterious and atmospheric universe.
So no, there’ll be no EMA vs Zola Jesus face off for the Best International Female Brit Award this February, and the basis of this showing, that’s a real shame.
