Obsidian rock is igneous, frequently dark, yet opaque. Hard edged and brittle, it’s often been used both for weaponry and alchemical pursuits. Therefore when Lorena Quintanilla – the Mexican-based artist also known as J. Zunz – was searching for psychic inspiration for her next musical venture, she need have looked no further. “Once I chose the title, everything I read, saw, listened to, and thought about began to interconnect” she relates. “Obsidian became like a magnetic field.”

This album – Quintanilla’s third under the J. Zunz name on Rocket – manages to be both more aggressive and more gentle than anything she’s previously created either on her own or in her work in Lorelle Meets The Obsolete. A study in balance, its emotional charge remains strong and intact whether on the eerie, almost Radiophonic ambience of ‘Imago’, the dancefloor-adjacent, Chris & Cosey-esque ‘Osiris’ or the abrasive, industrial-strength confrontation of ‘Silvia’. On ‘Final’ meanwhile, Lorena is joined by her only main collaborator this time around, Freddie Murphy (Father Murphy) whose trumpet and synth abstractions offer further vivid colour to ‘Obsidiana’s spectrum.

‘Obsidiana’, in all its sharp yet amorphous glory, is catharsis manifest. “Each song carries a clear and deliberate intention” Lorena emphasises. “To conjure, to exorcise, to strip away fear, to rediscover myself, to heal inherited sadness, and to reclaim the night that was taken from us."

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