Jlin - Akoma

A Closer Listen

Akoma is a Ghanan word commonly translated as heart and connoting love, acceptance, tolerance, goodwill, understanding and a host of other positive attributes.  The semantic similarity to akousma is likely unintentional, but the association is apt.

Jlin‘s skyrocketing career reached a new high in 2023, as her composition Perspective (as recorded by Third Coast Percussion) was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize in music along with only two other nominees.  In the same year, her own take became an EP with slightly different sequencing and one less movement.

And yet, amazingly, we don’t think she’s anywhere near her peak.

Jlin’s music is primarily electronic, but shares attributes with modern composition.  On Akoma, her stellar collaborators include Björk, Kronos Quartet and Philip Glass, demonstrating the range of her influences.  The collaborations are complimentary, no artist ever subsumed by another.  Björk may be audible in “Borealis,” but not overwhelming; she comes across as a kindred spirit.  The loops of “Sodalite (ft. Kronos Quartet)” skip like stones, swift strings transmuted into percussion.  And “The Precision of Infinity (ft. Philip Glass),” which closes the album, mingles rapid-fire piano and rapid-fire drums, a seeming collision that instead becomes a lattice.  The mid-piece whistles wink at the disco era, while the shout-out of the closing seconds is reminiscent of a DJ radio show, echoing an earlier appearance on “Speed of Darkness” and echoes in “Open Canvas” and “Auset.”

But if the collaborations are the album’s early story, the main story is Jlin.  Her beats seldom land where one might expect, yet her music is not beyond the realm of accessibility.  After a few spins, the listener acclimates to the music, which no longer seems strange, but instead a palpable push to the outer boundaries of rhythm, a perfect compliment to the world of Planet Mu and its founder Mike Paradinas, commonly known as µ-Ziq.

“Summon” is possessed by electronic saws, cymbals, trills and chimes, punctuated by dark brass blasts, the sort of selection that makes listeners beg, “What is this?”, followed by “Let it play out!”  “Open Canvas” is the album’s most straightforward, club-ready track, with electronics that veer between chainsaw and pocket lighter, a memorable four-note motif and a tempo of around 164 bpm.  The drumline really gets going on “Challenge (To Be Continued II”), which sent us back to Part I, the closing track of Black Origami ~ where we encountered that shout-out again, and the whistles!  We now realize that Jlin is making connections not only among artists, but within her own body of work, carrying out an intricate plan whose details are slowly coming into focus. There’s an incredible intellect at work here ~ but there’s also a lot of heart.  (Richard Allen)

The Quietus

On Jlin’s Akoma, music is continuously evolving. The Indiana-based composer carefully crafts her works, sculpting and chiselling them like a sculpture from marble. As they unfold, they grow into sprawling webs, getting more intricate with each phrase. Meticulous detail has always been the throughline of Jlin’s compositions, and throughout Akoma, she lets the fluidity and ease of her shape-shifting patterns drive her music, exploring the smooth transitions she can make between a variety of different polyrhythms. 

Jlin has carved a niche for herself as a genre-blending and defying composer whose influences span styles and mediums. She has brought footwork to groups like Third Coast Percussion, who played her Pulitzer shortlisted piece Perspective; she has collaborated with musicians across genres, like Holly Herndon, SOPHIE and Kronos Quartet; she has also worked across mediums, with visual artists including Kevin Beasley and Nick Cave as well as working in the fashion sphere. Akoma continues to explore her work as a unifier of artistic ideas, bringing in features from Kronos Quartet, Philip Glass and Björk and introducing drumline rhythms. Though she collages many elements together, her music feels less like a patchwork and more of a fused wave that ebbs and flows with each shift.

With Akoma, Jlin uses these building blocks to create different worlds on each track. There’s the dreamy sound of ‘Borealis’ at the start of the record. Later on, ‘Open Canvas’ takes a sharper approach, creating pointillistic beats that mix with gently twinkling melodies that shimmer like gossamer stars and strike like lightning. With ‘Sodalite’, the Kronos Quartet’s intricate string playing is spliced between beats, creating a sprawling patchwork quilt of trilling violins and techno. That track seeps into ‘Granny’s Cherry Pie’, a light collage of high-pitched, glimmering tones and pulsing rhythms. All of these tracks stem from similar inspirations and ideologic touchpoints, but no two offer the same atmosphere – some are dramatic, while others sparkle and float, and others still feel like dancefloor medleys.

Closer ‘The Precision of Infinity’ feels like the clearest synthesis of the ideas and themes Jlin explores throughout Akoma. The track blends the moodiness of Philip Glass’ solo piano music with the palpitations of Jlin’s footwork patterns, weaving them together so seamlessly they feel like a perfect match despite their different atmospheres (one moody, the other upbeat and fiery). Jlin has always reached across musical genres to create her music, and with Akoma, she reminds us again that genre is a malleable idea meant to be redefined and reshaped.

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Pitchfork

Read Daniel Bromfield’s review of the album.

Resident Advisor

Jerrilynn Patton may still live an hour's drive from footwork's Chicago origins—and just minutes from her hometown of Gary, Indiana—but her artistry as Jlin has..