“I’m not too much, you just give too little” is a quote from Rochelle Jordan’s song “Doing it Too,” which encapsulates her Album of the Year caliber project Through the Wall. Jordan has been in the industry for a long time but has been garnering a new fanbase and musical energy with her most recent releases with famed electronica producer Kaytranada. Her song “Spit it Out” was an album-defining song for Kaytranada’s album Timeless, and she also released a well-constructed EP, Lover/Friend with the Grammy award-winning Toronto-based producer as well. Jordan has been dropping music since 2009 with her debut project, the Alien Phase mixtape, which featured a smidge of electronica, a lot of raw talent, and musical basslines coming together. She also appeared on the song “Show” from house music producer extraordinaire Sango and released a 2021 album called Play With the Changes, which is rife with different types of dance music styles such as jungle and future beats, including the absolute dance party banger “Dancing Elephants”. Play With the Changes is a good album that has a lot of interesting sounds, but her newest album, Through the Wall is a way more sophisticated and more cohesive sounding album.

Through the Wall not only pulls you in sonically but also visually through its cover, which shows Jordan looking like she’s luring you into this album like an enticing electronica siren. The album starts with Rochelle harmonizing us into the door entrance of the club and as the intro ends we are let into the club that is the beginning of “Ladida.”  In an ideal world this song will catch steam and become a Black house classic. Rochelle has the deliberately crafted energy for any type of dance rhythm. If you need something that makes literal thumping, Rochelle can do it. A smooth jazzy house high hat?, Rochelle can do it. Something with a futuristic Rainforest Cafe bassline? Rochelle can do it. Her versatility in a particularly hard genre to find melodies in is impressive. Rochelle has an undeniable hit with “The Boy,” which has the mood of pre-Saint Heron Solange mixed with a Chicago House beat that’s infectious and catchy. The writing in this album is intricate and crafted to each beat and allows the beat to propel the meaning of the lines like her delivery of “Boys will be boys but the girls will too/And the girl should too” on “Doing It Too”.  

Now that I’ve had months with this album, it’s up there in Album of the Year honors for me in the same rarified air of Clipse’s Let God Sort Em Out and Bad Bunny’s DeBi TiRAR MáS FOToS. It is an album that should be recognized for trying new sounds and also having the potential to be the next great house album. I hope this leads to a campaign where Black female artists are not automatically put into the R&B category, because while Jordan does have tinges of R&B influence, this is a dance album, and an unapologetic one at that. 

On Through the Wall, Jordan is working with her long-time producer collaborator KLSH, who helps put together a distinct sound that is consistent throughout the album but has enough diversity so that you do not get bored. On tracks like “Get It Off,” he’s able to tap into 2000s Pharrell pop drums but with electronica chord progressions which he makes cohesive. “Get It Off” also  has one of the most impactful lines on the album: “And I’m surе you thought I’d be falling apart/But I’m falling in love with me”. This very line spotlights the thesis of this album: Rochelle uses the healing energy of house music rhythms to put the puzzle pieces of her career and love life back together and uses it to elevate into something she hasn’t even seen in both facets, a little lesson that we all could probably learn from. While KLSH is the central producer on the album, what Jimmy Edgar does on my favorite song on the album, “Bite the Bait,” is nothing short of amazing. He uses a clicker sound in the background of the beat that recalls an old school clock battery while exuding the coolness of the kids chilling and drinking in the back of the function.  

What I love about this album is that it perfectly illustrates the progression of a rave or house music party in terms of sequencing and pacing but also outlines what is happening in Rochelle’s life and what she is experiencing. You have the that exciting beginning buildup walking to the party, the point of the night where you get on the dance floor and cut up, the obligatory moment when you step out of the party to the outside area to catch a breath and talk with strangers and then the conclusion of the night where you leave and you realize, “wow, that was a good night.” When an album can seamlessly do this while keeping you engaged throughout the project entire, it is worth a nomination for any publications Album of the Year list.