Day 97: Jlin — Black Origami

Another artist who came to me via year-end list, Jerrilynn Patton constructs footwork music as Jlin. Her latest work, Black Origami pulses with a primal heartbeat, pushing the midwestern dance subgenre’s template into spaces beyond the dancefloor.

Intricacy is an asset when it comes to Jlin’s music. Filled with polyrhythms and finely-chopped samples, it can occasionally be difficult to find a given song’s center of gravity. But once the listener has their bearings, it’s possible to appreciate how its disconnected work together. This music communicates in a way that presages language, but somehow seem to reference ancient communions, calls to prayer, and technological failures at various turns. Unless you’re a footwork freak, these songs feel like entirely new worlds, and it’s not often that a record can claim that in these oversaturated times. From mating calls to drumline snares to incomplete call samples, Jlin manages to diffuse so many disparate noises into a single soundscape.

I’m not enough of an expert to comment on the album’s relationship with African folklore with any sort of authority, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that some of these tracks are an intentional effort to recreate those sorts of myths and rituals for contemporary audiences. And given that footwork is a music that’s already driven by the relationship between sound and physical self-expression, Black Origami (especially given its near-instrumental nature) feels like an attempt to establish a musical dialogue between a nearly irretrievable past and the present.

There’s more to it than that, and I feel like I’m grasping at ideas, but the beauty of Jlin’s work is that it feels so fully-formed while leaving so much room for interpretation. That and the fact that Black Origami seems to intentionally lampoon and deconstruct dubstep is enough to win me over. Even if my half-assed description has you on the fence, it probably has less in common with most of the other albums you’ll see on year-end lists. It should merit your consideration for that reason alone.

This is Day 97 in my 100 albums in 100 days series, where I review a new album or EP I haven’t heard in full before every day through December 31st. Check out yesterday’s post or see the full archives for more.