BLACK ORIGAMI
Electronic, IDM, Footwork.
Planet Mu.
Listening Format: CD & Digital.
Jlin is the recording alias of Jerrilynn Patton, an Electronic producer from Indiana, USA and signed to British label Planet Mu. 'Black Origami' is her second full length album that expresses a near continuous stream of tracks that rarely take a break. Her sound is very fast, choppy and bass heavy. She plays with lots of percussion, combining wonky techno beats with samples of tribal percussion, often overlapping each other in the same track. Her productions are very loud, packed full of chopped and screwed vocal samples that often become the motif of the song. For example 'Enigma' consists of a vocal sample that sounds like it is repeating "yah ting" for the whole duration.
In terms of composition, her music and the way it is presented is quite crass and very in your face. If you are looking for something subtle, moody or atmospheric, you've come to the wrong place. All of the songs here are quite joyous and a lot of fun. There is a lot of bounce to the production. If you happened to be at a warehouse rave or a Boiler Room set and a DJ dropped any one of these tracks into the mix, I guarantee the whole place would be dancing and getting their groove on.
Sure there is a lot to enjoy on this album and plenty to admire in the overall sound pallet. But there are some shortcomings too. 'Black Origami' is pretty much a one track minded album. It doesn't take long to really get what Jlin is going for here, and by the time you get to track three, you've basically heard everything this album has to offer. The same rhythms and ideas are repeated all over the album, which means if you listen from start to finish, everything starts to blur into one. In the way the tracks are sequenced, it isn't even that easy to tell when one song ends and the next begins. With the occasional exception, the tracks begin and end rather abruptly, and then she'll move on to the next track which will sound just as familiar. This means that by the time you get two thirds of the way through this album, it actually becomes rather tedious and grating. If ever an album was begging for some kind of interlude, or just some kind of variation away from the set formula, it is this one. I feel like Jlin forgets to throw in any real surprises.
On the surface, 'Black Origami' is cosmetically similar to the Death Grips 'Steroids' EP I recently reviewed and rated an 8/10. I also described that release as playful, crass, as being packed with dense and layered, fast moving sounds. However Death Grips had the foresight to keep it to just 22 minutes, and even then it not only had more variation and ideas on display, but also a real fire and urgency to it. Sometimes I feel like Jlin isn't letting her imagination run as wild as the choppy drums and fast shifting beats are. Some of the samples here of whistles, phone dial tones and stock answer machine messages just feel like old hat in 2017. This is something I would expect to hear on an 80s Acid Techno compilation, and even though some of this distinctive samples become some of the more memorable moments in the second half of the record, they stick out as sounding cheap and obnoxious.
Jlin is clearly good at arranging her productions and compositions. Her use of bouncing, bass heavy beats, and her infusions of tribal percussive sounds are all admirable. But I feel like this album just needed more. It's like she had two or three really solid ideas, and that was it, she crafted an entire album out of just that. 'Black Origami' doesn't get boring, but it does get tedious. And yes there is a difference between the two. You can easily get down and dance your ass off to any of the tracks here, but you'll soon be begging for some kind of variation or new idea to be introduced as you start to get worn out by this record. And once you come away from it, you realise there hasn't been enough substance behind it to really come away with a meaningful impression. But it will make you sweat... 5/10.
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