Autobiography (Music From Wayne Mcgregor's Autobiography)

Jlin - “Autobiography”
Jlin is described as a former steel worker from Gary, Indiana, and who makes really textured and dynamic dance music. This record, however, is the score for a collaboration with a British choreographer and it’s got a more atmospheric and ambient sound. Some tracks have really nice fast drum patterns that switch up a lot, while others are without drums and feature more haunting and ethereal samples and tones. The atmospheric tracks would fit in with your left of center experimental set, while the dancey ones would fit int with a variety of electonic/dance/indie genres. Play some of the!

Favorites: 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12,
FCCs: None!
RIYL: Aphex Twin, IDM, Footwork

1. “First Overture (Spiritual Atom)” - 5:08 - chimes panning and atmospheric vibes with occasional percussion; sweeping synths; not really a “song” and kind of a muted, subtle, approach, but definitely some intense and dramatic vibes.
2. “Annotation” - 4:03 - starts off with kicks and high hats and energetic synth melodies. Lots of cool percussive action. Clean tones, dancey vibe, but also a similarly kind of intensity to the opening track.
3. “Carbon 12” - 5:02 - Very cool track! midtempo drum vibes transition into faster paced kicks along with a gently haunting melody that moves through the percussive transitions. Nice glitches and changes ups without sacrificing the sort of gentle soothing vibes.
4. “Unorthodox Elements” - 3:34 - vocal sample opens up and moves into cool percussive patterns along with what sounds like a chopped up human breath and other synth sounds. More playful than the other tracks while still retaining the sort of dark vibe.
5. “Anamnesis (Part 1)” - 3:29 - very nice panning of piano sounds and other spooky tones; cool breakdown with really subtle samples getting aggressively played in background; sound of wind
6. “The Abyss of Doubt” - 3:34 - This is a really nice banger; starts off with intense percussion and quickly a footwork style vocal sample gets flipped. Very fun and spooky vibes on this. Super cool paranoid vibes.
7. “Mutation” - 4:58 - funky aggro beat with lots of switches in the tempo and rhythm but in a cohesive way. Cool synth stabs are percussive and blend with echoed out keys.
8. “First Interlude (Absence of Measure)” - 4:41 - drone tones and tick tock sounds; lots of atmospheric percussive sounds on this for first two minutes at which point the clock ticking comes back in. Very abstract minimalism. Very good.
9. “Permutation” - 4:39 - Damn this is a jam! Sounds like a Lil Jon beat and not in a bad way.
10. “Kundalini” - 4:46 - Very cool acoustic sounds with digital percussive dynamism. Sick track. Very dramatic string section adds nice texture.
11. “Anamnesis (Part 2)” - 4:03 - hazy piano sounds in the midst of forrest/jungle field recordings with birds and bugs - very cool atmospherics.
12. “Blue i” - 4:02 - Fun melody and really wonderful sounding percussion - sweeping shakers, acoustic sounding toms, tabla perhaps, and more. All programmed in the similarly complex textured way as the other dance tracks, but sounding very different because of the sounds that are programmed. Excellent vibe! Some dub elements.
13. “Second Interlude (The Choosing)” - 6:20 - dramatic vocal pads and ambient sounds. More of a “song” than some of the other ambient tracks on this record, while also remaining haunting and exploratory. Great track to end your set with or to play during a more downtempo/ambient show.