The smoking black splinter on the cover artwork could ideally come from the notorious black monolith, that landed on Earth and changed the course of events of a community of monkeys in the subtly ironic clip of Kubrick's "A Space Odissey", and the cinematic intro "Black Ballet" of this release by Indiana-based producer JLin could foster such a fancy and let you think of footwork as a sort of blessed cosmic stoning against eartlings! Besides any possible whim of your imagination, her definition of footwork, a style which keeps on getting squeezed by many music innovators and was constantly followed by an enlighted music mind like the sadly departed DJ Rashad, could reasonably be considered the state of the art of the genre and not only for the amazing clips where she inserted the menacing voice of notorious fighting videogames ("Flawless Victory" and "Suicide" -!- announcing on "Infrared (Bagua)" obviously got taken frm Mortal Kombat, as well as the "Round 1-Fight" in the middle of the precise cuts of "Mansa Musa" - named after a benevolent ruler of the legendary Mali Empire - will go frakking wild many Street Fighter fans) and the likewise amazing percussive juglling that spread over the album, as one the main feature of her sound is the lack of samples from old funk or soul records (it's about freaking time!!!). After the praises she received for "Erotic Heat", a banging track that was inserted in the list of the second volume of Bangs & Works, the compilation by Planet Mu, which tries to collect the best of Chcago Footwork, this album clearly shows that she could be one of the real pioneer of this evolving genre. I could guess that smoking splinter landed on Gary, JLin's hometown in the neighbourings of Chicago, which saw the birth of Jackson 5 and hosted many Steel Mills - including the one where JLIn works - and some fumes reached her nostrils to enhance her inventiveness. A mysterious godsend for lovers of bass-driven sonorities!