Born and raised in Chicago, she represents one of the most bubbly wings in electronica today. Having spent much of her life between studios and DJ booths, she’s a veteran who continues to explore her own musical boundaries. With the demise of driving force DJ Rashad in 2014, the footwork territory was certainly more orphaned; however, artists like Rush, ensure constant renewal of the genre, avoiding stagnation or cooling of the flame. An almost natural task for someone who, in addition to sound production, also engages in chemical engineering in a refinery and still serves as a firefighter and paramedic. In her personal life as in her music, Jana Rush is an energetic force that takes on various morphologies.
With a couple of singles released in the late 90s, she participated in the compilation The Armageddon 1996, alongside, and by invitation of, DJ Deeon for the mythical local label Dance Mania. After a hiatus of about a decade, Rush returned to the records. A return that translated into an essential work called Pariah. There we found, right from the start, a terrain of new emerging sounds, already distant from the footwork basic formula and with its heart still buried in the house heritage, although attentive and connected with other global urban expressions. Nervous beats, cinematic backdrops, and a brilliant acid infusion made this album one of the most celebrated of its time – and it still continues to sound challenging to the senses today.
Painful Enlightenment comes last year, even more ambitious. A genetically sonic work, full of transformative noise, free-jazz details, and other twisted, hybrid adventures. Her personal battle with depression found here an open-air stage to confront emotions and memories, in a labyrinthine game of rhythms and samples. An avant-garde album in its form, difficult to define, but very right for the time in which it was born – as a mirror of so many souls in uncertain times like the ones we are going through. This common and inevitable existentialism ring is also a space for encounter and discovery – and Jana Rush reminds us of that.
A premiere long overdue here, now made reality. NA
