Growing up in northern Wisconsin left Nika Roza Danilova with idyllic childhood memories of running through the boreal forest and chopping wood with her father. This, however, wasn’t the kind of lifestyle the experimental-pop artist known as Zola Jesus maintained following a move to Los Angeles to further her music career. But after she gained acclaim for a series of LPs crafted while working in the city, a nature-indebted nostalgia inspired Danilova to hightail it out of the smog-clogged Sunset Strip scene to prep her latest, luscious LP, Taiga.

“I liked it in the beginning, but after a while it started to feel very oppressive. I never really felt liberated there,” she tells the Straight of leaving the Golden State, a decision that brought her up to Vashon Island, Washington, in 2012. Though she now lives in nearby Seattle (“It’s easier for travelling”), Danilova’s initial settling into the relative isolation of the Pacific Northwest island helped her tap back into the spirit of her bucolic background.

“Being surrounded by nature, living by the water, and feeling very isolated from society and the whole idea of Hollywood, it’s so much more innate,” the singer explains over the phone. “It allowed me to explore the freedom that I felt when I was a child growing up in a more rural setting.”

Fittingly, the album-opening title track sounds like it was captured on a hilltop overlooking an expanse of towering balsam firs. Described by Danilova as an “antitranshumanist plea” for people to remember a time before technology took over (“Do you wish you could go back to it all?” she sings), the track swells skyward with rich, oxygenated vocal runs before exploding into an avalanche of breakbeats and bombastic brass.

Elsewhere, Danilova delivers a series of inspirational messages and oscillated electronic-pop tones on tracks like “Dangerous Days” and “Hunger”, the latter of which has her flexing an elastic vibrato over regal synth sounds. Early postpunk efforts slathered Danilova’s classically trained vocals with cavernous echo, but Taiga strips away effects to put pop melodies and her natural talents front and centre.

“Reverb—it’s comfortable, you know. It hides things, so you feel a little more safe,” she says. “It got to the point where that wasn’t feeding me anymore, it wasn’t challenging. Taking off the reverb allowed for a new challenge that I felt I needed to take.”

Also breaking new ground for Danilova is a move into the perfume market. A new taiga-themed scent released in collaboration with Ballard design studio Blackbird was likewise inspired by Danilova’s childhood. It features hints of dry moss, ash, minerals, and, in a nod to her family’s wood-burning stove, the smell of kindling.

While Taiga had Danilova reconnecting with the outdoors, the start of her second major leg of global tour dates means she’ll be attached to the concert circuit for the next little while. But with her songs and scent stirring up old memories, Zola Jesus is taking being cooped up in clubs in stride.

“It would be nice if I could go on hikes or to the more natural sides of the cities that I’m visiting, but unfortunately it’s not possible. I take it when I can get it, and when not, I deal. But, you know, everything has something to offer. It doesn’t always have to be natural.”

Zola Jesus plays Venue on Saturday (January 10).