Artists

From the warped breakbeats of drum n bass to the frenetic 808 attack of footwork, the last two decades of electronic music history have been marked by a fetishization of the drums, as technological advances have allowed producers to go ever deeper into rhythmic design.Black Origami, the remarkable second album from Gary, Indiana, producer Jlin is one of the most important recent developments in the history of electronic percussion, a brilliantly overblown yet mind-glowingly complex album of rhythmic possibility.Jlin emerged from the world of footwork in the early 2010s with the track “Erotic Heat,” which appeared on volume two of the iconic Bangs & Works compilation series on UK dance label Planet Mu. But if that track was an outlier in the footwork world of dance battles and frenetic DJ cuts, her 2015 debut album Dark Energy would see Jlin gravitate further into her own darkly elegant orbit, incorporating operatic arias (on “Black Ballet”) and Chinese erhu violin (on “Unknown Tongues”).Black Origami sees Jlin blow open the definition of what footwork can be. You can still feel the influence of footwork producers like DJ Rashad on a track like “1%” (featuring Holly Herndon), with its skittering hi-hats and coal-black synth lines, but elsewhere Jlin widens her global percussive net to take in everything from tabla drums (notably used in electronic music by London producer Talvin Singh) on “Kyanite” to the djembe on “Nyakinyua Rise,” all of which battles against Jlin’s drum-machine finesse in a global-percussion street fight. Jlin also takes on sounds that are closer to home: “Challenge (To Be Continued)” is a brilliant rhythmic tussle between US marching band and footwork hi-hats, while “Hatshepsut” throws a Joey Beltram hoover sound into the mix.Black Origami is also notable for its eye-opening array of collaborations, which veer several steps into the left field of electronic music. “Holy Child” sees Jlin work with minimalist composer William Basinski, the haunting “Calcination” features the gothic vocals of Fawkes, while the hip hop-ish “Never Created, Never Destroyed” includes vocal work from Cape Town rapper Dope Saint Jude that Jlin chops and splits to her own devices.Black Origami bears the influence of each of these collaborators and yet it sounds like none of them. It’s a footwork album but only in the very widest sense of what footwork can be. As such, Black Origami resembles—in spirit more than in sound—the work of 90s electronic-music producers like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Photek, and Remarc, who took the chopped up breakbeats of drum n bass and pushed them to ridiculous new levels of subatomic complexity, creating something quite revolutionary in its pointillist intensity. Black Origami is a worthy successor to these names, a jaw-dropping work of percussive complexity that marks out Jlin as a singularly brilliant talent.Click here to follow this playlist on Spotify.

Joe Gibbs was one of reggae’s great businessmen and ambassadors, and also one of the genre’s great producers. He was responsible for the highly influential African Dub series, introduced Dennis Brown to America, and worked extensively with the great Lee “Scratch” Perry. The write-up to this playlist on FACT provides an excellent detail to all of this, and the playlist itself is a monster. Though one wonders why they limited themselves to so few songs, the chronological order works to its advantage, as you can hear Gibbs’ sound (and, by extension, the sound of reggae in general) evolve from the late-60s throughout the 70s. As a note, some of these songs were not available on Spotify, but we did our best to recreate it.

John Coltrane went insane sometime around 1960. Once he hit that perfect balance of drugs, free jazz, and ingenious sidemen, it was game over for vintage hard bop. The Village Vanguard concerts of November 1961 saw the beginnings of the classic quartet—Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones—and their search for visionary new sounds and modes. In many ways, Coltrane revolutionized the concert experience through his visceral and spiritual engagement with his music of that period. Through these live performances, ranging from Coltrane Live in Paris to his essential contributions to Miles Davis’ 1960 tour, Coltrane delivered, through both his saxophone and his leadership, some of the most potent expressions of the post-war existential crisis that would ever be heard.

After collaborating with the likes of Nico Muhly and Ben Frost, and serving as a sound tech for the Philip Glass Ensemble, Canadian soundscape artist Jonathan Kawchuk will give his debut album, North, a wide release on January 26 through Paper Bag Records. But while the record presents a meditative melange of drifting piano melodies, string-scraping drones, and field-recording ambiance, the music that inspires him is decidedly less chill... “I have a Spotify folder that holds all these time-capsule playlists. Whenever my life enters a new feel or vibe, I make a playlist of whatever new music I’m listening to at the time. I have a playlist called ‘i’m learning’ for a stretch of my life when I was sneaking into university classes. I have a playlist called ‘ooo nåni nåni,’ which is when I moved to Toronto. There’s ‘Damn He Woke Me Up Early,’ ‘i miss mutek,’ ‘17 crux,’ ‘This way out!,’ et al. I do this when I’m writing as well; listening and picking apart a ton of music helps me hunt for the language I’m trying to speak. And even though my new record North is coming out soon, I thought it would be fun to share the playlist of what’s informing my music right now.”—Jonathan Kawchuk

Fitting for someone who was born in New Zealand but currently calls London home, Jordan Rakei covers a lot of ground. His recently released sophomore album, Wallflower (Ninja Tune) is a mesmerizing melange of after-hours R&B, experimental indie-pop, and soul-jazz grooves. To help you get in a suitably nocturnal mood, he made us this playlist of his favorite chillout soundtracks. “To me, these are some of the most beautiful songs in the world. Very sparse. Very relaxing. All have such an amazing energy that keeps bringing me back to them.”—Jordan Rakei

JR JRs Playlist

Tracks:

The Kinks- “Lola"

The Allman Brothers- “Melissa”

Dolly Parton- “Jolene”

The Beatles- “Julia”

Starship- “Sara”

Stephen malkmus- “Jenny and the ess-dog”

Weezer- “Buddy Holly”

OutKast- “Rosa parks”

Rolling Stones- “Angie”

JR JR- “Caroline”

The Allman Brothers- “Jessica”

The Beatles- “eleanore Rigby”

Counting Crows- “mr Jones”

Lou bega- “Mambo number 5”

The Police - “Roxanne"

Australian singer Juanita Stein has fronted the acclaimed rock-noir outfit Howling Bells since 2004. She releases her rootsy debut solo album, America, on July 28, 2017. To mark the occasion, shes produced this special playlist for The Dowsers of her favorite acts from Down Under. Here, Juanita explains what unites her selections: "Dirty and desolate: Aussie artists have a knack for beautifully capturing the dust settling, whether it be the psychedelic grit of King Gizzard or the delicate twilight of Julia Jacklin. These songs best capture my love of recent and (some) classic Australian bands."Watch the video for Juanita Steins recent single, "Dark Horse," here:

In the two plus years since Kamasi Washington dropped The Epic, his appropriately titled three-CD bonanza of Afrocentric post-bop sound, there has been a revolution in the world of jazz—and some of it was televised. Its no longer uncommon for a jazz musician to play sold-out rock arenas and headline major festivals. And its no longer odd to see jazz on hip-hop playlists, be it tracks by Washingtons West Coast Get Down associates like Josef Leimberg, Miles Mosley, or Terrace Martin, or by hip, think-outside-the-box jazz players like Robert Glasper, Makaya McCraven, or Jeff Parker. Washingtons first release since The Epic—the new six-part EP, Harmony of Difference—arrives to a different scene.Harmony of Difference is the soundtrack to a film by A.G. Rojas that premiered during the Biennial at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art in March 2017, and it shows the growth and diversification of Washingtons sound. He already draws heavily from the often overlooked glory days of the early 70s when musicians extended the jazz tradition into rock, funk, and African music. Deeper grooves power some of the tracks on Harmony, and the solos are more concise—where The Epics definitive tracks clocked in at longer than 10 minutes, the best music here often comes in under six. All of Washington’s stylistic advances are represented on “Truth,” which also provides a nifty recapitulation of what made The Epic so special, with its robust rhythms, a choir carrying a soaring melody, and a solo that would do John Coltrane proud. Its jazz eclecticism at its best—music that is both inclusive and deeply artful.But while his music can seem otherworldly, Washingtons bold new sound didnt land from outer space. The tracks on this playlist take you through his roots and influences, the current jazz movement he helped create, and the genre’s future.

Chicago native Kanye West is one of midwest hip-hop’s biggest stars, and he made his name producing hits for JAY-Z and other New York rappers. But West has maintained his relevance over the years in part by keeping a finger on the pulse of southern hip-hop, drafting rising stars from Atlanta, Houston, and Miami to appear on his albums and producing hits for Dirty South stars like Ludacris and Jeezy. Most recently, he served as “executive producer” on Atlanta trio Migos’ new album, Culture II, where he co-produced the 21 Savage collaboration “BBO (Bad Bitches Only).”Kanye West’s track record below the Mason-Dixon line dates back to the late ‘90s and early 2000s, when he was a relatively unknown producer placing tracks with southern trailblazers like Goodie Mob and Scarface. In 2003, he notched his first No. 1 on the Hot 100 producing Ludacris’ club banger “Stand Up,” along with a pair of tracks on an album that would help define the next wave of southern rap, T.I.’s Trap Muzik. Over the next few years, as West became a solo star who bridged many divides in hip-hop, he became the kind of rare stylistic chameleon who could make trap hits with Jeezy or screwed ’n’ chopped grooves with Paul Wall in between his excursions into east-coast boom bap and futuristic EDM.As the founder of G.O.O.D. Music, Kanye West has signed Atlantans 2 Chainz and CyHi The Prynce, and helped mentor Houston rapper/producer Travis Scott. G.O.O.D.’s 2016 posse cut “Champions” brought together some of the above with Gucci Mane, Yo Gotti, and Quavo. Some of Kanye’s southern collaborations are better off forgotten, like the treacly Future duet “I Won” and the ill-fated Lex Luger-produced Watch The Throne single “H.A.M.” But by and large, Kanye West has been present for moments of greatness in southern rap, from Scarface’s The Fix to Lil Wayne’s Tha Carter III.

In 2007, Kanye didnt know he would effectively end the near-20-year reign of gangsta rap by outselling 50 Cents lackluster album Curtis on their shared September release day. Kanye didnt know his mother would pass away suddenly, or that his longtime fiance would leave him, or that hed marry into the most famous American television family by choice. Graduation is a victory lap, the third part of a scrapped four-album story that was supposed to culminate with Good Ass Job, which instead became 808s & Heartbreak.Graduation continues the plucky underdog narrative built on 2004s breakthrough debut The College Dropout and 2005s Late Registration, which heralded the emergence of an artiste/hitmaker. Kanye was beginning to be regarded as the biggest egomaniac in rap history while still not showing his face on the cover on his record, something he still hasnt done. Kanye’s album covers hint at the music within: College Dropout is warm soul music, with brown, yellow, and burgundy tones on the cover and Kanye dressed in his trademark cuddly bear mascot. Late Registration is orchestral, full of strings, keys, and languid arrangements from Jon Brion—tellingly, the cover depicts the bear mascot, purposefully small, entering a vast new doorway that looks academic and orderly. By contrast, Graduation is exploding with anime, while the color choices of blue, yellow, pink and purple symbolize its ambitious energy, extravagance, and solidified confidence. Designed by Takashi Murakami (who Kanye described as "the Japanese Andy Warhol"), it nails Graduations wider palette of sample choices: Michael Jackson on "The Good Life," Krautrock gods Can on "Drunk and Hot Girls," Young Jeezys famous gravely "ha ha" adlibs on "Cant Tell Me Nothing," Elton Johns crooning on "Good Morning".Graduation was Kanyes leanest album up until that point: zero skits, and eight tracks shorter than both Dropout and Registration. Instead of telling the listener about all of his plans, his failures, his dreams, and his mostly bad jokes on songs and on skits, Graduation shows us his improved flow, his vast tastes, his arena-inspired hooks, and his added weapons of samples, live instruments, Southern-rap synths, and 808s (thanks to the inclusion of DJ Toomp and Mike Dean). 50 Cents music career has never recovered from the sales showdown he lost to Kanye West, but the truth is that if 50 Cent could make hits like "Stronger," "Flashing Lights," and "Cant Tell Me Nothing," gangsta rap would possibly still dominate the charts. Instead, a fashion-loving backpacker who wore Marty McFly shades and a Roc-a-Fella chain has remade rap and pop culture in his image every year for the past decade.