Before releasing his first solo album, Lingyuan Yang was already an established musician and composer, earning a BFA from the New School in New York City, writing the string quartet compositions The Heart of Ge’Nyen and Interference (performed by JACK Quartet), in addition to Yin-Yang, a wind and string quartet premiered by the Mannes American Composers Ensembles (MACE).
Yang has also been mentored by respected experimental music figures, including Eric Wubbels, Christopher Otto, Ingrid Laubrock, Anna Webber, Matt Mitchell, and Peter Evans. Yang is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in composition at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. However, before he left New York, he recordedCursed Month, a spellbinding jazz trio album.
With Yang on guitar, Shinya Lin on piano, and Asher Herzog on drums, Cursed Month is an intoxicating sonic assault that combines both compositional precision and unhinged improvisation, despite its relatively simple instrumental setup. Orchestral sweeps or horn blasts that often wend their way into the jazz vernacular are absent here (there’s a modicum of guitar effects, but they are used sparingly).
Cursed Month includes seven pieces composed between 2021 and 2024. It draws inspiration from Chinese astrology, where each of the twelve animal signs is said to have a corresponding inauspicious month—a time considered unlucky to be born (hence the title). The dramatic notes, crashing chords, and ever-changing time signatures that make up the opening track, “Ritual Fire”, suggest a jazzier take on King Crimson.
Meanwhile, Lin’s lightning-fast runs on “Moondial” bring a slightly more traditional bebop take to the record. There’s unhinged mania on tracks like the pummeling “Send Off the Ghosts”, but several songs begin with whisper-quiet arrangements (“The Song of the Mist” and “Spring Snow”) before tumbling into kinetic, noisy, three-part interplay.
What’s particularly striking about the way Cursed Month is executed is that it takes a relatively organic approach to its chaos. Even in its most frenetic moments, you’re still down to piano, drums, and guitar, which tends to shun a lot of the traditional effects one might expect from these arrangements. When the final chords are mercilessly hammered down at the conclusion of the final song, “The Sound of the Mountain”, the listener has been delightfully hammered into auditory submission.
“There’s nowhere to hide in a trio,” wrote musician and journalist Andy Cush when writing about Winston Cook-Wilson’s beguiling trio album Good Guess, and that’s undoubtedly true of Yang’s outfit and the seven songs that make up Cursed Month. Lingyuan Yang, Shinya Lin, and Asher Herzog have crafted a brooding, often tumultuous beast that takes the best aspects of freeform jazz and turns it into something unique and beautiful.
<!–
–>