New Work From 5 Black Composers

Jlin, Cassie Kinoshi, NikNak, Mazz Swift, Esy Tadesse

Mazz Swift

Before anything else: BOOK UPDATE! The first in-depth review of In The Brewing Luminous: The Life & Music of Cecil Taylor has appeared, in the latest issue of The Wire. The author, Dave Mandl of Emergency Group, calls it “…a Taylor completist’s, or for that matter a 20th century art aficionado’s, dream come true,” and I couldn’t agree more.

The book is going off to the printer this week, and you can pre-order it directly from the publisher. I don’t know anything about how book distribution works, so it may be a while before it’s available on Amazon or in physical bookstores. When I have copies myself, I will absolutely make them available through this newsletter. Stay tuned…

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The five records below might seem to have very little in common. Two of them have shared personnel, but that’s really about it. The unifying factor is a little deeper: Each is the work of a highly individual composer making music with few if any concessions to the outside world. They’re doing what they want to do, on their own terms. They have created and mastered new sonic languages, bending traditional forms — jazz, dance music, spirituals, Ethiopian music and more — to suit themselves. The only reason I’ve combined them all for review in this week’s newsletter is that they’re all really, really good. So let’s get into it!

Jerrilynn Patton records and performs as Jlin. She has released four full-length albums and four EPs to date. Her music is mostly composed on synthesizers and samplers, with highly intricate programmed rhythms; it has a cellular quality, repeating itself a few times, then changing. You can dance to it, but it’s not steady like techno, so you’re going to have to work to keep up and it will try to throw you. Her breakthrough release, 2017’s Black Origami, chopped up vocal samples and a stunning array of percussive sounds — drums, shakers, handclaps — into patterns as dense as a Turkish rug. The music almost felt like the sound of a machine thinking for itself. Her six-track Perspective EP, released last year, included a version of a track she composed for the group So Percussion, the acoustic version of which was considered for a Pulitzer Prize. Her latest album, Akoma, was released in March. It includes collaborations with Björk, Kronos Quartet, and Philip Glass. They mostly seem to consist of Jlin manipulating sonic material supplied by those artists, though; the sampled bits of Glass piano are so much in his trademark style, they’re almost self-parody, but she surrounds them with such a whirling storm of sound that the piece as a whole becomes almost a rejection of everything he values (minimalism, simplicity, steadiness). The work she creates entirely on her own is much more interesting. “Summon” combines tiny cymbal crashes with tiny, slashing horror-movie string sounds and orchestral horn stabs, creating something that could be a hip-hop remix of Anna Thorvaldsdóttir.

Alto saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi has been leading seed (formerly the SEED Ensemble) for several years. Their debut album, Driftglass, was one of my favorite albums of 2019, a disc I still return to. Though it’s only 27 minutes long, gratitude is a much more ambitious work that sets the core group at the heart of an expanded ensemble that also ropes in turntable artist NikNak and the London Contemporary Orchestra. gratitude is a six-part work performed by 18 musicians in total live at London’s Southbank Centre in March 2023. The music often has a pastoral, shimmering quality that emanates from the strings and massed horns, and Kinoshi’s composition is complex, swirling and eddying in a way that reminds me of classic Blue Note recordings of the 1960s like McCoy Tyner’s Tender Moments and Andrew Hill’s Passing Ships. NikNak is really key to the whole thing, though. She’s not scratching or doing anything typical for turntable artists; she’s tossing in abstract sounds, soaked in echo and reverb, like a dub producer. There’s an astonishing trumpet solo in the first movement, but the second is the one that stands out for me because it gives space to Shirley Tetteh, a brilliant guitarist who doesn’t get enough recognition.

Kinoshi also appears on two tracks on NikNak’s new album, Ireti. Her previous releases — 2020’s Bashi, 2022’s Chasing Solitude and Sankofa — were somewhat ambient and beatless, combining field recordings and found sounds and mixing them on digital turntables in a manner reminiscent of DJ Spooky and other “illbient” artists from the turn of the century. Ireti is harsher and noisier, incorporating bursts of static, loud electronic crunches, and a new aggressiveness; it also foregrounds rhythm to a greater degree than ever before. The beat programming on “12000RPM,” “Break My Bones,” and “Load Out” owes a lot to old-school jungle, even as the synths create soft pink-and-orange sunset clouds. In a recent profile in The Wire, NikNak says that the presence of guests on Ireti arises out of her absorption into a broader artistic community: “I’m thankful to be in a place where I can create music with people without feeling like I have to code switch… I’m not going to shrink for anybody. It’s really affirming, and it means that I’m on the right path.” Ireti is apparently a concept album, with some sort of dystopian sci-fi narrative, but it’s not necessary to know that to appreciate the brilliance of NikNak’s composition, production, and sound design.

I’ve been aware of violinist Mazz Swift for many years, as a member of the late Greg Tate’s conducted improv ensemble Burnt Sugar and the string trio Hear In Now and thanks to their work with Anthony Braxton, William Parker, Ingrid Laubrock, the Ghost Train Orchestra and others. It’s taken a long time, but their solo debut, The 10000 Things: Praise Songs For The iRiligious, has finally arrived. (Swift self-released an album in 2014 with the band MazzMuse.) It’s a true solo work; the music combines electronics, drum programming, sound design, multi-tracked vocals, and layers of violin, all performed by Swift except for a couple of vocal performances. The pieces are mostly based on spirituals, slave songs, and in one case (“Don’I Know-dis…?”) a prayer from the Latin Catholic mass. As an investigation of the past, and a modernization/interrogation of traditional material and the historical weight it carries, this album sits alongside the work of Matana Roberts, Amina Claudine Myers, Moor Mother, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Nicole Mitchell, but it’s also nothing like any of that. It’s entirely its own thing: the combination of beautiful choral harmonies, stuttering/chattering/thumping beats, stark violin, and deeply incisive lyrics (both newly written and reclaimed) is hypnotic and draws you into its world. Highly recommended.

Guitarist and singer Etsegenet Mekonnen has just released the 10-track, 27-minute Ahadu under the name Esy Tadesse. The tracks are based on Ethiopian music, using the scales common to that country’s music as the basis for compositions, some quite short, that surround biting yet melodic electric guitar and softly murmured vocals with gentle keyboards, amniotic echo, and occasional splashes of flute or the krar, a small harp/lyre-like instrument with a sharp, pinging sound. The drums are all programmed, either by Mekonnen or her husband/producer Kibrom Birhane, though sometimes, like on the desert blues of “Buna,” they’re set up to sound like hand percussion and other times, they’re a simple electronic thump keeping a synthesized pulse. “Admas,” which features flute from Warren Huang, is the longest track on the record and the most involved, building up long spiraling patterns that eventually burst forth in improvisatory blooms, but “Buna” and the dreamlike “Ere Manew” are the best showcases for her guitar playing.

That’s it for now. See you next week!