Theatricality, spectacle and risk taking are integral to the music of Zola Jesus.
For her 2012 show in the strange interior of New York’s Guggenheim Museum, she decided to back her performance not only with the usual barrage of electronics and noise-rock, but also live strings.
After the success of that show, she moved quickly to rework a package of career highlights into a cohesive album devoid of almost anything other than her voice and orchestral elements.
It’s a strange move; strings normally suggest a shift towards something bold and grandeur-packed. But this is a quality that already exists in her music.
The reserved ‘Fall Back’ is the only track written exclusively for Versions and unsurprisingly it’s the highlight. It’s tailored perfectly to its context and exposes a softer, romantic side to Jesus’ music, largely suppressed up to this point.
The reworks are successful enough in their orchestral guises. However, when shades of Conatus‘ brash electronic experimentalism are subtly snuck back in, a strong point is made that these songs shouldn’t really exist without them.
Essentially, Versions is more interesting as an idea than a finished record.
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The intricacies of Jesus’ songwriting are exposed by the nakedness of these cuts, forcing her to sing in a more reserved and dynamic fashion. It makes her work feel sharper but cumulatively, more ordinary, more stable and less exciting.
Although it’s a very well-executed and regularly beautiful detour, you’d be hard pressed to find any fan who would repeatedly come back to any of these remakes over the originals.
