Well composed but unnecessary

Last year the world was made acutely aware of the extent of Zola Jesus’ genius through Okovi. The album was a stark, cold landscape with only the light of a single campfire warming the tundra. Recently, Zola Jesus took to releasing a series of additions to the record with the album Okovi: Additions. The album contains a few original tracks and some remixes of tracks from the album. While some elements feel like worthy add-ons, the project as a whole comes off feeling somewhat superfluous despite much of its quality.

The first half of the album is where most listeners will likely find the best value. The four original tracks that compose the first half of the album are extremely similar to what was already on Okovi, which makes the album worth the price of admission. While there are major similarities to Okovi for obvious reasons, the tracks are notably grittier, similar to some of the cuts from Stridulum. Both “Bound” and “Vacant” feature a vicious background hum that occasionally pushes into the meat of the song, clipping into the high end of the audio. The effect is extremely noticeable but very welcome. Zola Jesus is an expert at blending noise into her tracks, even the more pop-driven ones feature some harsh elements that help to separate her from the pack.

Where the album runs into some problems is on the back four tracks, which are all remixes of some of the highlight tracks from Okovi. Zola Jesus typically has masterful remixes, even of her own tracks as exhibited on Versions. The problem arises from having other artists do remixes of the tracks, none of which are bad per say, but they run the gamut from doing too much and burying the original track, to doing far too little, leaving the point of a remix in question. The two highlights of the remixes are the Wolves in the Throne room remix of “Exhumed” and Joanne Pollock’s remix of “Soak.” The former is almost unrecognizable beneath layers of brutal guitars, while the latter is a lightly touched remix that features engaging sound effects and a masterful touch of harmony manipulation in the chorus that really helps add life to portions of the track. Sadly, neither remix is enough to truly justify the album beyond being a companion piece.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Okovi: Additions, it’s a perfectly passable record that is likely better than much of the music that will be released this year. The issue arises when it is put to test against the rest of Zola Jesus’s discography. It’s a bit of a “what you see is what you get” situation, which is something that Zola Jesus has always managed to avoid even when she has remixed her own work. The original songs are worth the price of admission and the remixes range from competent to solid, but listeners will likely be left wondering if the project really brings enough to the table to be necessary.