Following a formidable opening salvo - the BBC 6music playlisted single ‘Controller’ - Hercules & Love Affair announce the release of their fourth studio album, Omnion, on September 1st on mr.intl/Skint/BMG. Renowned for their exuberant stage show and Andy Butler's knack for elegant and timely productions, Hercules & Love Affair have - unconsciously - hit the zeitgeist with eleven songs that sparkle with faith and tolerance as a response to our troubling times.

“Sometimes songs are born out of an intense moment that has nothing to do with club music,” explains Hercules main man Andy Butler. “…I’m not just a "head" (read techno-head, house-head, disco-head)….I’m touched just as much by, say, Sinead O’Connor accompanied only by a guitar, singing an intensely spirited message.”

Helping Butler realise this new dynamic are a world class cast of singers including The Horrors’ Faris Badwan, the Arab World’s most influential indie band Mashrou’ Leila, New York singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten, and Icelandic sister act Sísý Ey, as well as regular collaborators Rouge Mary and Gustaph - and Butler himself on the intensely personal electro ballad ‘Fools Wear Crowns’. Having had “a massive, massive relationship with drugs and clubs” since his youth, culminating in “a brutal drug addiction that saw me overdosed in hospital every weekend”, ButIer has been clean for four years and Omnion is rich with his re-immersion in the wider world, in all its ugliness and beauty. 

Tracklisting:

1. Omnion (feat. Sharon Van Etten)

2. Controller (feat. Faris Badwan)

3. Rejoice (feat. Rouge Mary)

4. Are You Still Certain? (feat. Mashrou' Leila)

5. Running (feat. Sisy Ey)

6. Fools Wear Crowns

7. Lies (feat. Gustaph)

8. Wild Child (feat. Rouge Mary)

9. My Curse and Cure (feat. Gustaph)

10. Through Your Atmosphere (feat. Faris Badwan)

11. Epilogue (feat. Gustaph)

Forthcoming dates:

22nd July - Tramlines Festival, Sheffield (UK) [Andy Butler DJ set]

11th August - Houghton Festival, Kings Lynn (UK)

13th August - Boomtown Festival, Winchester [UK] (Andy Butler DJ set)

25th August - Rock en Seine, Paris (France)

27th August - Stephenson Works, Newcastle (UK)

1st September - Into the Great Wide Open, Vlieland (Netherlands)

9th September - Festival No. 6, Portmeirion (Wales)

16th September - Kutxa Kultur Festival, San Sebastian (Spain)

19th October - ADE at Paradiso, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

10th November - Metropop Festival, Lausanne (Switzerland)

'Soak' is the second song from Zola Jesus’ forthcoming album Okovi, which is set for release on September 8. Furthering the intense narrative of Okovi, 'Soak' is written through the lens of serial killer’s victim, clinging to life and about to be dumped in the water. “I was thinking about this crucial moment inside the victim’s mind, when she knows she’s going to die. She thinks back at her life and the futility of the decisions she made, when in the end her life would be cut short against her will,” says Zola Jesus of the track.

“What’s the point of trying to navigate life if you don’t even get to choose how it ends? Instead of letting her fate be determined by someone else, she takes back control and turns it around, so instead, in her mind, she is choosing to die. She lets the killer assist her in suicide, as she gets tossed into the water and slowly drowns. Through writing this song the story evolved within me, and I saw how it mirrored my own feelings inside."

For over a decade, Nika Roza Danilova has been recording music as Zola Jesus. She’s been on Sacred Bones Records for most of that time, and Okovi marks her reunion with the label. Fittingly, the 11 electronics-driven songs on Okovi share musical DNA with her early work on Sacred Bones. The music was written in pure catharsis, and as a result, the sonics are heavy, dark, and exploratory. In addition to the contributions of Danilova’s longtime live bandmate Alex DeGroot, producer/musician wife, cellist/noise-maker Shannon Kennedy from Pedestrian Deposit, and percussionist Ted Byrnes all helped build Okovi’s textural universe.

With Okovi, Zola Jesus has crafted a profound meditation on loss and reconciliation that stands tall alongside the major works of its genre. The album speaks of tragedy with great wisdom and clarity. Its songs plumb dark depths, but they reflect light as well. "Last year, I moved back to the woods in Wisconsin where I was raised. I built a little house just steps away from where my dilapidated childhood tree fort is slowly recombining into earth.  Okovi was fed by this return to roots and several very personal traumas.

While writing Okovi, I endured people very close to me trying to die, and others trying desperately not to. Meanwhile, I was fighting through a haze so thick I wasn’t sure I’d find my way to the other side. Death, in all of its masks, has been encircling everyone I love, and with it the questions of legacy, worth, and will.

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?

This album is a deeply personal snapshot of loss, reconciliation, and a sympathy for the chains that keep us all grounded to the unforgiving laws of nature. To bring it to life, I decided to enlist the help of Alex DeGroot, who has been the only constant in my live band and helped mix the Stridulum EP back in 2010. It will be released on Sacred Bones, the closest group of people I’ll ever have to blood-bound family."

Zola Jesus Tour Dates:

29/10 - Brighton, UK - The Haunt

31/10 - Glasgow, UK - St. Luke’s

01/11 - Manchester, UK - Band on the Wall

02/11 - Leeds, UK - Belgrave Music Hall

03/11 - Norwich, UK - Arts Centre

04/11 - Liverpool, UK - Stanley Theatre

06/11 - Dublin, IE - Whelan’s

07/11 - London, UK - Village Underground