Chicago house veteran Jana Rush made her full-length debut with 2017's Pariah, a confounding album filled with contorted, bass-heavy rhythms and samples pushed past the breaking point. While that record was clearly tied to the footwork scene, Painful Enlightenment seems more removed from club music, to the point where Rush describes it as "dark experimental listening music." (Its original title was listed as Abstract Abstractions.) The release's tracks were born from Rush's struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, and she purposely chose sounds that are jarring and uncomfortable, expressing pain, frustration, and bleakness. Following no obvious formulas, Rush lets sounds clash with each other, overpowering the bass and piling up menacing noises, or sometimes she'll strip things down to just throbbing beats and particularly discordant sounds, like the sour saxophone during opening track "Moanin'." A nine-minute track called "Suicidal Ideation" appears near the beginning of the album, starting out with fierce, mutated roars and a sharp, jumping voice jostling for attention. It only gets grimmer, with gory noises approximating a gruesome horror flick, eventually succeeded by sexual moans, sinister laughter, and a dislocated Dr. Dre sample. "Spot" has a more extensive sex sample, but it sounds cold and unsettling rather than ecstatic. "Disturbed" has brighter synths and more upfront, danceable beats than the other tracks, and even though the diva vocals clearly nod to house music's past, the full-bodied shouts of "I need you" express desperation rather than excitement. Then things get truly weird with tracks like the sci-fi scuffle of "Disorientation," the epic sword battle of "Mynd Fuc," and two mind-scrambling collaborations with Teklife's DJ Paypal. Definitely not an album for passive listening, this is a challenging and ultimately illuminating experience.