JLin's Intelligent Design

The American producer’s latest release ‘Black Origami’ makes your mind melt and will probably make all the best albums of 2017 lists.

- Urvija Banerji

“As a matter of fact, I’ve never told anybody this,” says Jerrilynn Patton conspiratorially, “but my first DJ name was DJ Skip.” She laughs her quick, infectious laugh. “Saying it out loud makes me sick. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever told anybody that,” she says. “And then I changed my name to Gaga, and I had to switch that because Lady Gaga came out. Now, Gaga had been my nickname all my life, so when she came out I was like, really?

Today, Patton uses the moniker Jlin (short for Jerrilynn), under which she has released two albums and an EP, and the music she makes couldn’t be further from Lady Gaga. In the two years since her first album, the critically acclaimed Dark Energy, Patton has grown in both skill and recognition to become one of the foremost electronic music producers on the scene. Her latest album, Black Origami, develops upon her frantic, unpredictable style, which draws heavily from footwork, the genre of house music and dance originating from Chicago. “But I don’t consider myself a footwork artist,” says Patton firmly.

To relegate Black Origami to just one genre would indeed feel reductionist. The album operates in multiple different headspaces at once, using richly layered samples and intricate, erratic rhythms. “Origami is the art of folding a piece of paper, folding and bending it into this complex piece of work,” says Patton. “Instead of using paper, I replace the paper with sound. I called [this album] Black Origami because that’s basically the definition of what I do.”