"This one is a bit of rather absurdist writing about being lost in those in-between places. In limbo."

Rahway, NJ native J Hacha De Zola is talking about "In Curtains" from his upcoming new album (and second of 2016), "Picaro Obscuro." The track, which heavily features Tom Waits collaborators Ralph Carney on sax, and David Coulter on percussion and violin, "plays upon the idea of falling outside of the cyclical nature of night and day," Hacha De Zola explains.

“The kind of alluring character found in old children’s books" is how UTNE recently described Hacha De Zola.

On his new album, Hacha De Zola has managed to actually “escape from Fat Kat City,” (the title of his early 2016 debut album), leaving Rahway, New Jersey and the shadow of the maximum security prison that literally loomed over him while recording that record, and venturing across the country to a tiny studio built in an old boiler room in Portland, Oregon.

It’s here that he was joined by the rest of the “Fat Kat” band, as well as some legendary players in the form of Ralph Carney and David Coulter, to record Hacha De Zola’s second full-length album of 2016, "Picaro Obscuro", arriving on August 12th.

Influences on the sound of "Picaro Obscuro" according to Hacha De Zola include: Perez Prado, Captain Beefheart, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Danil Kharms, Arthur Rimbaud, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and Syd Barrett.

“He’s like a codeine cough syrup dream on the train to Zurich,” is how legendary sax man Carney describes Hacha De Zola. Carney, who made his bones with Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, The B-52s, They Might Be Giants, and Frank Black (and who is also the uncle of The Black Keys co-founder, Patrick Carney), makes his tenor and baritone horns an omnipresent force on "Picaro Obscuro".

Multi-instrumentalist Coulter is everywhere, as well. Coulter, who has recorded, performed and toured with artists as diverse as Damon Albarn, Jarvis Cocker, Laurie Anderson, Kronos Quartet, Yoko Ono, and Beck among many other notables, shares a common compatriot with Carney in Waits. Carney performed on the Waits album "The Black Rider," a collection of the songs from the theater piece of the same name for which Coulter served as Associate Musical Director.

"Picaro Obscuro", the second album (and second of 2016) by J Hacha De Zola arrives on August 12th, 2016.