Blackbird's Zola Jesus Taiga

by: Jodi Battershell

I must admit, I am a newcomer to the music of artist Zola Jesus. After watching and listening online to get a feel for it, I'm intrigued by her sound and her visual aesthetic. The brief video above doesn't fully showcase her powerful voice and unique musical stylings, so I'm including another video below which displays both to greater effect. Both videos also fit the theme of this article, which is also the theme of the perfume I am exploring: Zola Jesus Taiga from Blackbird.

Zola Jesus is the stage name for artist Nika Roza Danilova (in Russian: Ника Роза Данилова), an American-born vocalist and multi-instrumentalist of Russian descent. A classically trained musician raised in the forests of rural Wisconsin, she cites a myriad of influences across multiple genres—punk, new wave, no wave, pop, opera—which inform her unique sound today. Zola Jesus has released five albums to date, with the most recent being 2014's Taiga, after the Russian snowforest.

It's fitting on many levels that Zola Jesus teamed up with edgy Seattle, Washington design studio Blackbird to create a fragrance that captures the essence of her latest album. More than 50% of the state of Washington is covered by forests. Taiga was written on Vashon Island, which is near Seattle. The tree-filled video for "Dangerous Days" was filmed in Washington's Hoh Rainforest. Zola Jesus Taiga perfume is filled with precious wood, smoky notes and touches of lush greenery—a veritable taiga in a bottle. I can't think of a designer more suited to create a fragrance like this than Blackbird.

Blackbird incense burning at Elements Showcase, August 2013

(It's absolutely perfect, too, that Blackbird, known also for their amazingly creative incense compositions, have released Zola Jesus Taiga as incense pyres in addition to the perfume.)

Chock full of amazingly good stuff, Zola Jesus Taiga has official notes of Guaiacwood, Teak, Oud, Copaiba Balsam, Indian Frankincense, Cedar, Black Pepper, Nutmeg, Choya Loban, Nagarmotha, Omani Frankincense, Sandalwood, Green Peppercorn, Smoke, Oak, Cistus, Ambrette, Myrrh, Davana, Helichrysum, Geranium, Vetiver, Caraway and Opopanax.  The fragrance opens with gentle flashes of plush green from the bergamot, geranium and helichyrsum, but I was hooked by its spicy sweet smoke over fresh-cut woods which appears shortly after application. The fragrance lasts a good 10+ hours, with powerful sillage for the first two hours that gradually settles to a warm, sweet and resinous finish.

There are many notes here that could easily pull this fragrance towards the traditional oriental fragrances of the Middle East, but  there's a density here that speaks more of temperate climates than shifting desert sands. Zola Jesus Taiga is the scent of a hermit's cabin hidden deep in the woods, where the sole inhabitant spends days and nights contemplating the mysteries of existence before an altar of burning incense. Intact trees of the forest surround the split wood cabin, which in turn surrounds the firelight and gentle glow of incense embers as the fragrance spirals on an inward journey to the depths of the soul. What will we discover about ourselves along the way? Darkness or light? Bitterness or sweetness? Such a journey is not to be undertaken lightly and it could very well be dangerous ...

Zola Jesus Taiga is available on the official Blackbird website as 30 ml spray, 10 ml roll-on and incense pyres in a travel-ready tin. 

Thank you to Blackbird for the opportunity to try this remarkable scent!

Official product image: Blackbird; Elements image: John Biebel.