A collection of Jlin’s favourite albums
When an artist comes through with a wildly inventive approach to composition and re-writing conventions of the genre they’re working in, it hardly ever comes as a shock to find out that their tastes are all over the musical map. If said artist has worked with names like Björk and Philip Glass on separate occasions, it should probably come as even less of a surprise.
Inspiration can come from early exposure courtesy of friends and family, later immersing yourself in a style that shapes your output, or even having a surprising love for something far removed from your music that you derive huge amounts of pleasure from when you’re not focused on writing your own material.
Jerrilynn Patton, better known as Jlin, turned heads in the world of electronic music with early releases in Dark Energy and Black Origami. Both records adopted a frenetic take on footwork that paid homage to the genre’s forefathers in DJ Rashad and RP Boo but also incorporated elements of IDM and deconstructed club to put a bizarre and often futuristic spin on the music. It sounds somewhat alien, but it’s up there with some of the best of its kind in recent years.
Speaking to The Vinyl Factory, Jlin expressed a particular fondness for a vast variety of records that helped shape her as a person and artist, and it probably shouldn’t come as a surprise to learn that among her favourite albums, none of them really sound much like her output in the slightest, coming from soul, R&B, hip-hop and pop styles instead. That being said, some of her picks are from undisputed greats, and the way in which she acknowledges how her chosen records don’t miss a moment comes from a place of genuine appreciation for the craft that goes into making albums.
The first pick on Jlin’s list comes from Sade, with their 2000 comeback album Lovers Rock. It might not be the album that most would cite as being the best from the British-Nigerian songwriter and her band, but Jlin insists that “it just touched me in a totally different way” and that there are “no skips on this record”. Given the soft and downtempo nature of Sade’s music when compared with the often harsh and disorienting soundscapes heard on Jlin records, there’s very little that the two have in common, but Sade’s meticulous approach rarely ever faltered over the duration of the group’s career and has undoubtedly been an influence far beyond their own genre boundaries.
Next to be discussed was Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly, a record that often worms its way into many people’s favourite albums of all time. While the funk and soul elements of Mayfield’s album are also distant from anything Jlin has made, she explained that “Curtis is a whole universe” when describing how the record still blows her away. There is a cinematic quality to Jlin’s material, which sees her arrange sounds in fascinating ways, but she’s quick to recognise that few others have ever successfully been able to approach arrangement like Mayfield achieves on Superfly, itself also a cinematic release.
The funk picks would slowly morph into disco territory on her next pick – Earth, Wind & Fire’s All ‘n All, which she would also state is an act that doesn’t miss on any of their records. While crediting Maurice White as being a hugely influential songwriter to her for how he would incorporate spirituality into his sound, she would then go on to highlight how this was the same for Lupe Fiasco on his Tetsuo & Youth album, which she also picked.
“Lupe is so on point, and you hear his wisdom come through in the storytelling,” she admitted.
Her fifth and final selection was the most recent on the list, opting to give props to Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales from 2021. Another concept album like Superfly, it’s the ability to tell stories and shapeshift in her style that resonated with Jlin, and while they haven’t trodden the same paths musically, this is something that definitely shows as being important to Jlin’s sound.
“She is so versatile in whatever she touches,” Jlin explained of Sullivan’s approach, something that if you were to listen to her own music, such as her latest album Akoma, you’d be hard-pressed not to feel the same way about.
