Where Zola Jesus meets Johnny Jewel and cosmic sparks go off in these versions, edits and remixes of “Wiseblood” and “Ash to Bone”
David Lynch sits in a corner under a cracked window, bathed in inky night, worrying a lever like the Man in the Planet from Eraserhead. With an almighty metallic screech he pulls the lever down – time distends then extends out rushing towards itself in millions of moments that become moments ago – And so it was that Sacred Bones and Italians Do It Better joined cosmic forces and Zola Jesus was remixed by Johnny Jewel.
Multiple versions, edits and remixes of “Wiseblood” and “Ash to Bone” from Zola Jesus’s 2017 LP Okovi come together to form an exciting EP and DJ/filmmaker/curator toolkit. Johnny Jewel knows how to successfully deliver variations on a theme, tracks suited for particular purposes, without draining the soul out of the things he is tinkering with.
The original version of “Wiseblood” is throbbing nighttime music inside a crumbling sonic cathedral, drums of doom bursting through the echo. With the “Johnny Jewel Alternate Version” the track is opened up and its insides are electrified. The slow pulse electro crackle and passing dream trains build an irresistible momentum. His “Johnny Jewel Remix” is the sound of Zola Jesus being transmitted out into space. Mid-1970s NASA vans drive out to the desert in unison, a coordinated evacuation into the unknown. Scientists, administrators and dreamers clamber out of their vehicles and look to the skies. Italians Do It Better lightshow-assisted spaceship music signals the arrival of Zola Jesus, her presence otherworldly, her words present:
“If it doesn’t make you wiser / Doesn’t make you stronger / Doesn’t make you live a little bit / What are you doing?”
“Ash to Bone (Johnny Jewel Remix)” plays inside the spaceship as it takes off from Earth. It’s Daft Punk boiled down and allowed to spill over the controls, resulting in cosmic disco on the cusp of energy release.
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