A strike, a pause, a response. Wood, metal, electronics. A musical phrase passes from one instrument to another, changes shape and keeps moving. You want to listen closely — and move along with it.
23 October 2026 electronic musician and composer Jlin and the Chicago ensemble Third Coast Percussion have released a joint album, Vernacular. It became a new stage in their decade-long collaboration, in which contemporary academic music meets electronic practice.
The title can be translated as “living language” or “local speech.” It is especially fitting for this meeting: the musicians build their own way of conversing through rhythm.
Music is born between the participants
Third Coast Percussion is an ensemble that expands the idea of what percussion instruments can do. On the new album, the performers are Sean Connors, Robert Dillon, Peter Martin and David Skidmore. Jlin participates as a performer on electronics and percussion.
The recording took place 4–8 May 2026 at Electrical Audio studio in Chicago.
Behind the joint work lie different ways of thinking about music. For the percussionists, sound is tied to physical gesture: touch, the force of a strike, the properties of the instrument. Electronic composition makes it possible to organize time, repetition and the transformation of sound in its own way.
In Vernacular these possibilities become the material of a shared creative work. Both the individual timbre and the way it responds to its neighbor matter.
From Premonition to a Common Sound
The album opens with Premonition — “Premonition.” The composition by Jlin was arranged by Sean Connors. The title track Vernacular they created together.
The other members of the ensemble also appear as co-authors and arrangers: Peter Martin worked on Carbon 12 and Five Perspectives, Robert Dillon on Grannie’s Cherry Pie, David Skidmore on Summon and LC3. These details show how deeply the collaboration is woven into the very structure of the album.
Each composition has its own story of interaction. A musical idea passes through the experience of several people and takes on a form that would have been hard to predict alone.
Glass and Longstreth join the conversation
The program is complemented by Butterfly Dancing Over a Barrel by David Longstreth, known for the band Dirty Projectors, and an arrangement of Mishima / Closing by Philip Glass.
In a commentary on the album, the musicians note: Glass connects the participants of this encounter. He has collaborated with Jlin and Third Coast Percussion, and for Longstreth he became one of the early sources of inspiration.
Thus the new release gains yet another dimension — continuity. Musical ideas continue to live when they pass through new hands, instruments and ways of hearing.
Listening with the whole body
The performers describe the joint program as “chamber music for the dance floor”. 11 November 2026 it is announced at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw.
There is a joyful freedom in this definition. One can follow the structure of the composition, distinguish details of the performance — and at the same time let the rhythm respond through movement.
Try, while listening, to pick one repeating sound. Follow it, then shift your attention to another. The overall musical picture changes along with what you notice in it.
Listening becomes its own small creative act: each person assembles an encounter with the work through their own attention.
What did this event add to the sound of the planet?
Vernacular added a new common language in which the recognizability of different voices is preserved.
The musicians bring into it mastery, experience, a sense of time and their own boldness. Their coherence is born in the ability to hear one another and leave space for response.
There is an image of interaction here that feels close to us. Each person unfolds their own possibilities, and the encounter allows something to emerge that did not exist before.
In the polyphony of the planet there is always room for a new consonance. Sometimes it begins with a single strike — and with the attention of someone ready to respond.
