Carla Bozulich may be the most transient performer and sound artist of the last 20 years. This isn’t hard to prove when you look through her discography, which documents her stream of collaborations with Nels Cline, Thurston Moore, Wilco and Christian Marclay, just to name a few. Ever since her performance on Gary Kail’s 1984 work, “Zurich 1916,” released as part of the album “Creative Nihilism,” her methods and products have been mixing visual, performance and sound art forms, often with unprecedented results.
Although “Creative Nihilism” suggests the severity of a Cormac McCarthy novel, this might be a humorously apt title for Bozulich’s mercurial habits. First recognized for her work with The Geraldine Fibbers, an alternative country band that housed Cline for several years, Bozulich came to be known for her semantically heavy lyrics. These became a type of manifesto for her quasi-cult following, especially with female fans.
In a 1997 interview by Silja J.A. Talvi of Rockrgrl, Bozulich was asked about the part of her fan base who felt her voice and lyrics demonstrative of the inner struggle and abuses that women face. A deflective Bozulich responded that “sometimes I regret giving such a serious consideration to these issues in such a public light because people misunderstand me constantly.”
Prodded further about her balance between dark and light, she explained, “I feel that what I’m trying to say, I don’t really know what it is exactly, but I know that it’s not simply ’wake up, everything’s fucked up all around you!’ There’s like this corkscrew that you can screw in there that will just set everything off kilter in the funniest way. And I don’t know, something like that.”
Apparently many reviewers didn’t know either. Never satisfied with just one gig, 1998 saw Bozulich release two Scarnella records (a name derived from a combination of “Nels” and “Carla”), one of which was a tribute to James Brown. Mike Vago of Seattle’s The Stranger called the work interesting, but often “slow, meandering, and completely self-indulgent.” He wasn’t alone. The mixed reviews were undoubtedly sharpened by the band name sounding like a venereal disease, but in any case, Bozulich pressed on unfazed.
The new millennium expanded her creative reach, as the composer scored a Los Angeles production of Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” as well the film, By Hook Or By Crook. The latter went to Sundance in 2003. She also released a new version of Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger” that featured the original composer on three of the tracks. Backed up by her sister and the ever faithful Cline, Bozulich once again produced a work that should have turned many more heads than it did.
Bozulich’s third solo album, 2006’s “Evangelista,” finally saw her coming to terms with her fragmented musical past. Shifting from solid noise to bleary-eyed blues at the drop of a dime, the album proved especially important for the composer not only in execution, but also as an impetus to name her new touring band. Now recording under the moniker Evangelista, her label, Constellation Records, slates “Hello, Voyager” to be released on March 11th of this year.
Whispers and previews suggest that this latest album may be her most developed work to date. A recently announced tour will see the band make its way from Tuscon all the way to Brooklyn in just over a month with few days off.
In an interview last year with Webzine Millefeuille, Bozulich decided to skip the external speculation and ask herself a few questions: “Carla, are you a giant monster that walks big shaking steps tumbling concrete and asphalt dust making every machine everywhere you go malfunction? [Yes.] Do you, Carla, move with a hole in your abdomen that you put there so a person can peek at another life that makes them feel stimulated and like breaking things in the name of WHAT THE HELL IS UNDERNEATH? [Yes.] Are you happy when you are gentle and kind? [Yes, I am happy. Thank you.].”
With that attitude in mind, I can’t help but romanticize the tour as not only one of the most important displays for Bozulich herself, but also as a nationwide vindication of the composer’s talents and past work. Composed of a heap of members (including some from A Silver Mount Zion), Bozulich’s relatively new alliance with Constellation already seems to be ushering her into a new, more self aware realm of creativity. Even the album title, “Hello, Voyager,” embodies that humorously melancholic feeling I get when I listen to her past work.
I think it’s precisely this juxtaposition of horrible sadness and wit that so thoroughly perplexes critics and potential fans. It’s easy to take the creative energy of someone like Bozulich and pigeonhole her as any one advocate, as Talvi from Rockrgrl alluded to. But just like her more-polished cousin Wilco, criticism and labels don’t do much to restrain the composer’s inextricably personal music. Remember Jeff Tweedy denying again and again that “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” was conceived as an “experimental” album? Same idea.
To be sure, Bozulich has enjoyed favorable reviews from a small audience, but that’s just the problem—the audience is unfortunately small, often in the same way that her mysterious aesthetic reaches press kits. My hope is that “Hello, Voyager” will change this, and the signs are already good, especially if a recent announcement of Evangelista’s tour on Pitchfork is any indication. With any luck at all, Bozulich will be duly recognized in her ascension to her own unique realm of self-imposed and unabashed creative nihilism.