THE FUTURE IS NOW
40 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com September, 2017
SOUNDS LIKE:The title of her second album –
Black Origami– is a fine description: dark snares
and pointy textures folding in on themselves.
FOR FANS OF: Aphex Twin, DJ Rashad, Autechre
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTENTION:Though
no stranger to buzz – her fi rst album wasRolling
Stone’s Number Two electronic album of 2015 –
Jlin’s second LP has seen a torrent
of love from tastemakers, includ-
ing features in Spin and Pitchfork,
and performances at Red Bull
Music Academy. Luckily, the latest
album by the artist born Jerilyn
Patto lives up to the hype, and is
so unique in its sound that it’s as
though it emerged from a vacuum.
Though earlier material drew from
Chicago footwork – Patton hails from nearby
Gary, Indiana – most of that genre’s rhythmic
hallmarks have receded into the ether. In their
place? Unpredictable, hyper-speed, minimalist
clatterings of drums, warped vocal snippets, and
the occasional wail, all laced with enough flang-
ing and echoes to approach the sublime.Black
Origami’s cast of guest collaborators, too, reflects
this kind of heady stuff, with names like sound
artist/composer Holly Herndon and minimalist
legend William Basinski coming to play.
SHE SAYS:“Origami is the art of
taking paper and folding it, bending
it and making it into this complex
thing, right? But it starts off as a
blank sheet of paper. Instead of
using the paper, I replace it with
sound,” she says. “The way that
I approach music is that I don’t.
It’s like chemistry for me; it’s
experimental. I never go in with a
concept.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF: “Holy Child”, a collab
with William Basinksi, rattles and hums as if from
another dimension. ARIELLE CASTILLOSOUNDS LIKE:Countrified St.
Louis soul refracted through
the prism of futuristic Chicago
hip-hop
FOR FANS OF:Andre 3000,
Mick Jenkins, Chance the Rap-
per
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY AT-
TENTION:After leaving his
native St. Louis for Chicago,
Smino made a name for himself
in that city’s vibrant hip-hop
scene – his love song “Anita” has
a million plays across YouTube
and SoundCloud. On the heels
of collaborations with Chi-Town
locals like Noname, Saba, Jean
Deaux and Mick Jenkins, Smino
dropped his debut album,blk-
swn, in March and set out on his
first headlining U.S. tour to sup-
port it. He’s played to sold-out
crowds everywhere from New
York to “the Lou”, but concert-
goers at the Atlanta leg of the
Swanita tour got a special treat
when T-Pain, one of Smino’s
idols, joined him on stage to
perform Pain’s hit “Chopped N
Skrewed”.
HE SAYS:“I feel like it’s a mag-
netic force right now in Chicago,
and it’s been being instilled in
the Midwest. I’m from the Lou
–Ilovemycity–but...inthe
Midwest, Chicago is the mecca
right now to music. And it’s a
reason for that, there’s so many
creatives comin’ from all over
the world to be in Chicago. It’s
so much energy in Chicago...
So that’s what I’m tryin’ to start
helping my city [St. Louis] see
in itself. We can get back to that
type of shit, all we have to do –
in real life – is find each other.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF:Smino,
the blkswn, celebrates black love
in “Anita”. TIMMHOTEP AKUSmino
“The way that I
approach music
is that I don’t. It’s
like chemistry
for me; it’s
experimental.”Jlin