Hatshepsut
Jlin
From the 2017 album Black Origami, this track marks a shift in Jlin's work toward something more ceremonial. Named for the ancient Egyptian pharaoh — the woman who ruled as king, who ordered her own image carved into stone for three thousand years — the music carries that weight of deliberate self-inscription. The percussion here is more ritualistic than mechanical, the patterns calling to mind procession rather than the jerking improvisations of the footwork floor. There are melodic fragments, brief and haunting, that surface and submerge like memory. The tempo is slower than much of her catalog, which amplifies the sense of gravity — each strike lands with the authority of something being recorded, not just played. The emotional landscape is not warm but it is reverent, a kind of austere veneration for power that is ancient and feminine and deliberately reclaimed. It belongs to a conversation about whose faces get carved into monuments and who gets to make that decision. This is music for early mornings when you want to feel connected to something larger than the current century, when you need a sense of your own solidity and duration before the day asks you to compromise it.
medium
2010s
dark, ceremonial, weighty
Chicago footwork, ancient Egyptian historical reference
Electronic, Footwork. Experimental Footwork. reverent, austere. Opens with processional gravity and sustains a ceremonial weight throughout, arriving at austere veneration for ancient reclaimed power.. energy 6. medium. danceability 4. valence 3. vocals: no vocals, brief haunting melodic fragments surface and submerge. production: ritualistic percussion, sparse haunting melodic elements, deliberate economy of sound. texture: dark, ceremonial, weighty. acousticness 2. era: 2010s. Chicago footwork, ancient Egyptian historical reference. Early mornings when you want to feel connected to something larger than the current century before the day asks you to compromise.