- A sometimes abrasive and dissonant exploration of loneliness through the ghosts of footwork.
- The first time I played "Suicidal Ideation" from the Chicago producer Jana Rush's newest album, Painful Enlightenment, I kept checking to see if I'd left YouTube (or Jurassic Park) playing on a browser tab. It's almost impossible to listen to the song and not experience growing anxiety as the samples of dinosaurs, anime and Dr. Dre scattered throughout, creating an internet house-of-mirrors that becomes increasingly claustrophobic over the song's nine minutes. This pervasive unease defines Painful Enlightenment, a record written while Rush was going through some extremely painful lows. The LP almost mirrors the doomscrolling feel of the modern internet, capturing the effect of tumbling down darker and darker rabbit holes. Rush's frenetic sampling, coupled with her spectral take on footwork, results in a dark, difficult yet rewarding album that sounds unlike any record—footwork or otherwise—out there.
On Rush's 20-years-in-the-making debut album, Pariah, she used footwork and juke to explore a broad cross-section of Chicago dance music history—from the acid footwork of "Acid Tek 2" to the classic house motifs in "Old Skool." We hear further snippets of Chicago house history on this record as well, though it sounds panicked and on-edge this time around. The "I need you" refrain on "Disturbed" isn't romantic so much as a desperate cry for help from someone on the edge.
The constant juxtaposition of high and low-end keeps the tension at a high throughout the LP, as organic melodies contrast the fretful wobble of Rush's rhythm section. Arrhythmic hits of sub-bass threaten to upend the desolate spanish guitar on "Painful Enlightenment," while the synths whip like gale-force winds over the smoky jazz piano of "Mynd Fuc." But as the LP's title suggests, there are lighter moments: the unmistakable funk in the bassline of Nancy Fortune collaboration "Drivin' Me Insane," and shades of purple dubstep on "Just A Taste," with an assist from DJ Paypal, though the vocals here still sound eerie and haunted.
Pariah was so memorable because it charted completely new sonic topographies across footwork tempos—there were troughs of emotional depth ("Midline Depth") alongside soaring atmospheric peaks ("Divine"). Painful Enlightenment is every bit as good, though a far different beast. It's a footwork album in textures only, with Rush zeroing in on a much narrower set of feeling—unique, but also abrasive. With each listen, I found that I had to stop whatever else I was doing and commit myself to the demands of the record. It's not background music. In this sense, the raw feeling and jagged edges are the antidote to bored, deflating pandemic-era doom-scrolling. It might not make you feel good, per se, but Painful Enlightenment will cut through all those distracted clicks, forgotten browser tabs and bad news downward spirals and make you feel something viscerally real instead.
Tracklist01. Moanin'
02. Suicidal Ideation
03. Painful Enlightenment
04. G-Spot
05. Disturbed
06. Disorientation
07. Mynd Fuc
08. Intergalactic Battle feat. DJ Paypal
09. Drivin' Me Insane feat. Nancy Fortune
10. 3
11. Just A Taste feat. DJ Paypal