Very happy to reveal that J. Zunz, the musical project by Mexican artist Lorena Quintanilla has revealed her third album for Rocket – a mesmerising 9 track LP called 'Obsidiana'.
Watch the John O'Carroll made video for first single – the visceral repetition of 'Silvia' above.
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'Obsidiana' which is released on 29 May is td to 300 copies on clear vinyl and spot gloss sleeve, is available to preorder from your favourite record shop, or via the link below:
https://rocketrecordings.com/products/obsidiana
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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.”
“In Mesoamerican cultures, it was used in many different ways – obsidian mirrors, for example, were tools for divination and spiritual vision. For many years, women have also been working with it as a form of healing, which is the part that really drew me in”. Thereafter, Lorena set about creating an album entirely on her own terms, refracting this first spark through a prism of elemental approaches to create ‘Obsidiana’, a richly atmospheric, electronic-driven album replete with sensitivity and visceral intent.
“The album reflects the healing journey I went through, an attempt to translate it into music: a process unfolding in multiple layers, weaving together different ideas, and shifting intentions from one moment to the next while searching for a strong, low-end foundation” she notes. Driven by both the ghost and the heart of the machine, ‘Obsidiana’ open up a portal whereby forbidding drone, ethereal ambience and insistent repetition intertwine elegantly to form a seamless whole.
Paradoxically, 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.
Lyrically meanwhile, ‘Obsidiana’ intersects deep personal explorations with the conflicts and contradictions of life in the unforgiving realm of 2026 - as Lorena says; “The process behind ‘Obsidiana’ was very abstract, yet I wanted the lyrics to stay grounded in the present and in reality. I am deeply influenced by what is happening around me politically, as well as locally and globally – dimensions I see as inseparable from each other” – this is clear in the intimidating ‘Exorcizo Tu Voz’, which intercepts mantric repetition with a mighty explosion of abrasive yet uplifting tumult.
Ultimately however, ‘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.”
J. Zunz is celebrating the announcement of this new album with a special show:
April 17 / Tijuana / Malbouche
...and a J. Zunz European tour is in the planning for later this year.
