In true reverberant fashion, Zola Jesus' elegiac voice lends an eerily beautiful touch to the warm, basal synth tones of producer Randall Dunn on the duo's collaboration, "A True Home." Dunn has built his 20-plus year career on laying the recording groundwork for the success of acts like Sunn O))), Myrkur, and the late Jóhann Jóhannsson (on his work scoring the heavy metal film extravaganza Mandy), but his debut solo outing shows his creative talents extend beyond the producing booth.
The accompanying video for track sees young Turkish actress Melisa Şenolsun wandering the Oman desert, with cuts jumping from her in a transcendental, hallucinogenic state to her ritualistically carving the sand around her, seemingly in search of life-giving sustenance and water. Her action reflect the lyrics, based on a 16th century Zen death poem, and follow one of Dunn's personal visions. "The film is based on a reoccurring dream I had this past year of a woman walking through the desert in search of water. Longing reds and browns set against the deep sun," he recalls, continuing, "The song is about the realization that the journey to find 'self' begins and ends at the same time and that this realization occurs when true presence is embraced."
Zola Jesus was honored to contribute the vocals, commenting, "I met Randall for the first time about a year ago. As soon as we got to know each other we connected deeply, sharing so much common ground on both creative and personal levels ... not only am I huge fan of his work, but this song in particular held great meaning for him and thus me as well."
The resulting partnership appears on Dunn's first LP, Beloved, on which he experiments using early digital and analog synthesizers to build emotional resonance within the electronic realm. The seven song album is constructed on "anxiety, paranoia, different shades of love, different realizations of mortality, how it can make you feel the stages of your life more deeply." Pick up a copy here, and see another video from the record, "Something About That Night," below.
BELOVED TRACK LISTING:
1. Amphidromic Point
2. Lava Rock and Amber
3. Something About that Night (feat. Frank Fisher)
4. Theoria / Aleph
5. Mexico City
6. Virgo
7. A True Home (feat. Zola Jesus)
