Kevin Bronson on June 8th, 2017

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Goth-pop enchantress Zola Jesus has announced that her sixth album will be released Sept. 8 via Sacred Bones, and she has this to say about the title, “Okovi”: “Okovi is a Slavic word for shackles. We’re all shackled to something — to life, to death, to bodies, to minds, to illness, to people, to birthright, to duty. Each of us born with a unique debt, and we have until we die to pay it back. Without this cost, what gives us the right to live? And moreover, what gives us the right to die? Are we really even free to choose?”

So it is in that context that she revealed the otherworldly song “Exhumed,” a synth- and string-strafed incantation that pounds away like a debt collector at your door. The singer-songwriter, finding inspiration for her new music in a move back to her native Wisconsin, was assisted in making the album by live bandmate Alex DeGroot, L.A. producer WIFE, cellist Shannon Kennedy (Pedestrian Deposit) and percussionist Ted Byrnes. And, of course, all the aforementioned baggage.

||| Stream: “Exhumed”

||| Live: Zola Jesus will perform July 20 as part of the free MOCA Music concerts series at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in downtown L.A.