There is so much to cover here already and Zhala is only just breaking through the emerging artist surface as it were, but quite honestly if you become the first musical signing ever to Robyn’s Konichiwa Records, then you know you are going to burn some serious interest by direct association alone.
Whereas, it is more the norm for Robyn to be bringing us glitteringly danceable electro pop tuneage herself, she has seen to sign up a keen experimentalist in the acquisition of Zhala.
Zhala citing herself as a maker of “cosmic pop”, executes a much more visionary alchemist approach to her compositions than the casually used “cosmic pop” tag suggests.
An initial impression of Zhala’s higher reaching electronically steeped alchemy first seeped it’s way online a couple of years ago, following on from a tour involvement singing with Lykke Li, onwardly seeing curiosity abound with her Dreijer Knife-esque presentation “Slippin Around”, from there on in, Zahala has since been regarded as one of Swedish music best kept dark secrets.
Wherever there is a cover of darkness, there is also the inevitable promise of an awakening of light in the distance – and so it has now come to light that Robyn was won over by this floridly creative debut effort and prompted her into the action of signing Zhala up.
The first instance we became aware of this new pop alliance though, came a matter of days ago when the pair took to the stage together at the Swedish Grammis drawing in a performance of Zhala’s debut lead single “Prophet” from the EP of the same name.
Darkly inviting, “Prophet” tips the genre defying scales of experimentation into what would probably normally be regarded as a no-go area of “religious rave” calling, however, it is intriguing by thought and design, innovative and forward thinkingly illuminating of the most conceptually discerning kind.
In the wrong hands this would be looked upon as nothing but a bit bonkers, but in Swedish hands it thrives with an instinctive knowing vision of how to justly pull it off.
For more of the same, stream the complete EP and find yourselves transported into an experimental array of sonically formed and viscerally intelligent electronica.