Black Origami is the second album by American producer Jlin, first issued for streaming on May 11, 2017 and on other formats by Planet Mu on May 19, 2017. Produced in a year from 2015 to 2016, it features collaborations with William Basinski, Holly Herndon, Fawkes, and Dope Saint Jude. The title of Black Origami describes the structure of the music: the songs are complex pieces that take advantage of silence as much as sounds, similar to how an origami makes intricate art based on plain paper. Two tracks from previous Jlin extended plays appear on Black Origami: "Nandi" from Free Fall (2015) and "Nyakinya Rise" from Dark Lotus (2017).
Black Origami was critically acclaimed upon its release; reviewers highlighted Jlin's increased range in her sound and style, the album's variety of sounds, its percussion and rhythms, and the use of collaborators. Black Origami landed in the top ten of year-end lists by publications such as Exclaim!, Rolling Stone, Spin, Pitchfork, PopMatters, and the Chicago Tribune and was one position shy of making it into the top ten of The Village Voices annual Pazz & Jop critics poll.
Production
Jlin began work on a second album "about May-ish, June-ish of 2015" and completed it a year later.Huffman, Jibade-Khalil (January 4, 2018). "Jlin" . Bomb. New Arts Publications, Inc. Retrieved February 1, 2018. The first track made for it was "Nandi". The next track she worked on was what would become Black Origamis title track, its 24-measure ending of the title track taking three days to complete.Raihani, Nadine (December 5, 2016). "Jlin on Finding her Sound" . Native Instruments. Retrieved January 31, 2018. She explained that when she made the title track, "I thought I might be onto something and dug deeper. It's started developing into an album before I realized it."Dorn, Anna (May 5, 2017). ""Expression Changes Constantly": An Interview with Jlin" . Passion of the Weiss. Retrieved February 1, 2018. After completing the song, Jlin became friends with Indian dancer Avril Stormy Unger. As she explained, "I happened to go to her page one day and I saw videos of her dancing. And I was like, Oh my god, this is it. Her rhythm and movement was matching my rhythm and sound." As a result, Jlin created "Carbon 7" based on Unger's dancing. The next two songs to be completed were "Enigma" and "Hatshepsut", named after an Egyptian queen.
According to Jlin, the staff at Planet Mu called her "stupid because I didn’t wait for someone who should have been on my second album—we had a difference in the work we were collaborating on. Everybody else thought I should have waited and was in total panic mode, so I had to work around them and push past them to make a decision." However, Black Origami still features collaborations with avant-garde producers such as Holly Herndon, William Basinski, Dope Saint Jude, and French artist Fawkes.Reynolds, Simon (May 18, 2017). "Simon Reynolds meets Jlin: 'I got part of my ideology from Coco Chanel'" . The Guardian. Retrieved February 1, 2018.Sylvester, Daniel (May 23, 2017). "Jlin's Blank Slate Turns 'Black Origami' into a Global Community Effort" . Exclaim!. Retrieved February 1, 2018. "Holy Child" began with Jlin emailing a female Baltic folk vocal loop to William Basinski for him to turn into "magic". Basinki first met Jlin unexpectedly during a soundcheck in New York. The penultimate track done for the album was a collaboration with Holly Herndon named "1%". Herndon previously worked with Jlin on "Expand", a track from her debut album Dark Energy (2015).Cush, Andy (May 11, 2015). "Explore Jlin’s Expanding Universe of Collaborators and Friends" . Spin. Retrieved February 1, 2018. Jlin produced the last songs for the album in India.Bengal, Rebecca (May 9, 2017). "Jlin: Woman of Steel" . Pitchfork. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
Composition As Exclaim! critic Daniel Sylvester summarized Black Origami, "it's earthy and futuristic, complex and linear, dance-y and a total mind-fuck."
With Black Origami, Jlin, in her words, wanted to do "something different, something that challenged me to my core," and make music "with no boundaries". She wanted to make the music "complex" like an origami, hence the title. As such, Black Origami involves "manipulating silence", much like the "emptiness" of paper origamis are often made of, as much as "volatile beat patterns and otherworldly fragmented sounds," claimed The Fader.Gaillot, Ann-Derrick (May 2, 2017). "For Jlin, The Only Way Is Up" . The Fader. Retrieved January 31, 2018. The album, as a result, is more spacious than previous Jlin records, to the point where "tracks like the rattling "Enigma" or the glittery splash of "Carbon 7" feel like they should be choreographed with fluid and balletic steps instead of the rapid movements of footwork and juke, even if the rhythms remain at the same BPM as ever," wrote Consequence of Sounds Robert Ham.
As per usual for Jlin's music, the album contains chaotic, unpredictable rhythms and lots of detail in the sound design.Cush, Andy (May 11, 2017). "Jlin's Rust Belt Modernism" . Spin. Retrieved February 1, 2018. In fact, the drums and percussion in the album's original mix sounded so aggressive that Planet Mu instructed the mastering engineer to tone down the harshness of the sound. Black Origami is non-melodic and features sounds of drums, bells, vocal snippets, whistles, and world music percussion samples. It is "propelled by the sheer force of her percussion, her ornate, radical progressions, her shape-shifting sounds," and "an undercurrent of menace", wrote Rebecca Bengal.
Some reviewers noted the album's multicultural influences in the music,Cardew, Ben (May 19, 2017). "Jlin – Black Origami" . The Quietus. Retrieved February 3, 2018.Hsu, Hua (May 22, 2017). ""Black Origami": Jlin's Moody New Dance Album" . The New Yorker. Retrieved February 3, 2018. particularly of Eastern music.Simonson, CJ (July 6, 2017). "BLACK ORIGAMI by Jlin" . XFDR. Retrieved February 3, 2018. They range from marching-band-style drums ("Hatshepsut") to Bollywood percussion ("Kyanite") to American hip-hop drums ("Never Created, Never Destroyed"). A review by Ham noted Jlin's activities of traveling around the world she did after Dark Energy gained popularity; he suggested that on Black Origami, she "absorb[s] those experiences and influences and bring[s] them to bear on her work with clarity and speed."
Jlin stated Black Origami was not a footwork album, and some publications opined she was right,Carman Spaccasi, Samantha (June 28, 2017). "Reviews: Jlin, Julie Byrne, Priests" . Pretty Much Amazing. Retrieved February 3, 2018. Spin magazine reasoning the music was "too ornate" and "self-possessed" to be categorized as footwork. On the other hand, Treble magazine claimed the album "echoes and expands on the range" of the genre.Blyweiss, Adam (May 22, 2017). "Album of the Week: Jlin – Black Origami" . Treble. Retrieved February 3, 2018. AllMusic called the album "fluid and delicate" for a footwork record, also analyzing it is "informed by ballet and contemporary dance in addition to more club-oriented dance styles." Writer Andrew Nosnitsky wrote that Black Origami is several genres "and none of them at once. It’s a rhythm-spanning collection of contradictions and colliding worlds—the intensity of social music refracted through an introverted mind, the physical converted into digital and back again, the past told through future music and vice versa—all making the case that rhythm is too infinite, too forceful to be reduced to mere utilitarian functions."
Journalist Ben Cardew found Black Origami akin to the 1990s works of Photek, Squarepusher, and Aphex Twin, where it takes "the rhythmic intensity of drum and bass and squeeze[s] and contort[s] it into fascinating new shapes." Spin also compared it to the 1990s music of Aphex Twin for its "determination to plumb the horizontal possibilities of dance music." While most of the tracks are very percussion-heavy, the album also occasionally veers into more ambient pieces like "Calcination". It also features several elements of witch house.
Release and promotion Jlin announced a follow-up to Dark Energy on April 15, 2016 via an interview with the Line Noise Podcast. She stated it would "veer very far left of footwork", would either be named Black Origami: The Motherboard or Black Origami: Dark Lotus, and was planned to be issued in March 2017.Black, Billy (April 15, 2016). "JLin reveals Dark Energy follow-up" . Crack Magazine. Retrieved February 2, 2018. "Nandi" first appeared on Jlin's extended play Free Fall (2015) and was released as a single on November 4, 2015.Leight, Elias (November 4, 2015). "Listen To Jlin’s "Nandi"" . The Fader. Retrieved February 1, 2018. "Nyakinya Rise" was previously on another Jlin EP titled Dark Lotus and was issued as a single on January 23, 2017.Lozano, Kevin (January 23, 2017). ""Nyakinyua Rise" by Jlin Review" . Pitchfork. Retrieved February 1, 2018. Three more singles were released from Black Origami: "Challenge (To Be Continued)", which premiered via The Fader on May 2, 2017, the title track, which Mixmag made available alongside an interview on May 4, 2017,Ravens, Chal (May 4, 2017). "Very spiritual moments: Jlin is pushing the limits of experimental dance music" . Mixmag. Retrieved February 2, 2018. and "Holy Child". which was released on May 10, 2017.Iadarola, Alexander (May 10, 2017). "Jlin Shares Stirring New Collaboration with William Basinski" . Thump. Retrieved February 1, 2018.
On May 23, 2017, the video for "Carbon 7" was released.Rodriguez, Krystal (May 23, 2017). "Jlin Shares a Haunting New Music Video for "Carbon 7"" . Thump. Retrieved January 31, 2018. Directed by Joji Koyama, it involves a man played by dancer Corey Scott-Gilbert moving through a dark warehouse. NPR Music first distributed the album for streaming on May 11, 2017, before Planet Mu issued it to CD, digital download, and vinyl on May 19, 2017. As Jlin described the album's cover art, "I love elephants. I. Love. Elephants. Elephants are the most precious thing to me on this planet. So, I asked my label when we designed the cover art [that] I wanted an origami of an elephant. And they sure enough, I don’t know how they did it, they delivered. So there we go."
Critical reception
Upon its release, Black Origami garnered critical acclaim, some reviewers calling it a breakthrough record for Jlin and one of the best albums of 2017 (see the Accolades section for more information). A Spin reviewer honored it as the "future of progressive club music. It is bold, precise, cross-cultural and far more intelligent than waning genres both outside (like rock) and inside (think tech house or even traditional footwork) the dance music world."Julious, Britt (May 19, 2017). "Review: Jlin’s Black Origami Is Her Boldest, Brightest Work Yet" . Spin. Retrieved February 3, 2018.