In the last three years, Nika Roza Danilova has gone from being an outsider experimental teenage noise-maker to a full-fledged, internationally celebrated electronic pop musician. It was a huge feat to accomplish, and despite her age (young), her geography (mid-western, desolate), her accelerated scholastic requirements (high school and college were completed in three years each) and her diminutive physical size (4”11, 90 lbs), she has triumphed. She has emerged as a figurehead - a self-produced, self-designed, self-taught independent woman. Zola Jesus will release her new album, Conatus, on Souterrain Transmissions on September 26, 2011. The follow up to 2010’s Stridulum II, the album’s release will be preceded by festival dates this summer, with headline shows around release coming soon.

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Zola Jesus is not a band; it is a solo project. Zola Jesus is not a singer; she is a musician. It has always been so. That is not to say the people who have helped her along the way were not deeply important. Her irreplaceable live band, whose drummer Nick Johnson lends a hand on several tracks here, and her friend Brian Foote who co-produced this album in addition to the live string players (Sean McCann, Ryan York) who contribute here were all crucial in the process. Nika, however, is a woman who can command a room - any room - without needing a band, a stage, or even a microphone. Her voice is unmistakable; it cuts right to the core. Conatus is a huge leap forward in production, instrumentation and song structure. It says it all in the definition of the title: the will to keep on, to move forward. From thumping ballads to electronic glitch, no sound goes unexplored on her new record. It is an icy exploration in refined chaos and controlled madness, an effort to break through capability and access a sonic world that crumbles as it shines.