Review from February 10, 2023, on the Web Magazine DoppioJazz

// by Kater Pink

Released by Dodicilune and distributed from February 7th in Italy and internationally by Ird and from February 14th in leading online stores by Believe Digital, “Tears and Light” is the new project by the Salentinian trio Yugen. Katya Fiorentino (piano and compositions), Stefano Compagnone (bass), and Maurizio De Tommasi (drums) will officially present the eight original tracks of the CD on Friday, February 10th at 9 PM with a concert hosted at Officine Culturali Ergot in Piazzetta Ignazio Falconieri in Lecce.

The trio, formed in 2020, develops a sound range that plays with space and time. Cyclical rhythmic and melodic cells mix with wide sound expansions, from which emerges a horizontal conception of the band where each instrument is always the protagonist of the piece performed: a suspended, evanescent soundscape, sometimes intimate or abstract but always rich and multifaceted, through an aesthetic research characteristic of contemporary European jazz avant-garde, rooted in the Scandinavian tradition. An essential and at the same time colorful language, a continuous search for refined and original timbral solutions, themes with a strong melodic imprint, improvisation, and total expressive freedom are the essential features of the trio. Yugen invites listeners to listen and introspect, aiming for a subjective experience to become collective. In line with their musical style, the trio chooses to perform exclusively in museums, cultural associations, festivals, historical or artistic venues. In some tracks of the album, the trio is supported by Valerio Daniele (guitar), Giorgio Distante (trumpet), and Francesco Massaro (electronics).

“Goethe used to say that ‘architecture is frozen music.’ Thus, music is architecture,” writes Davide Ielmini in the liner notes. “This trio knows it well, capable of an emotionally divergent but compact language where, between the vigorous and the daring, there are reflective tones (“Sheets From Afar”) but never light ones. Yugen, with its disarming sound purity, unites the sound transfigurations of contemporary times in an occasionally epic narrative. In which the dichotomies of emotions, always fleeting as this music sometimes is, flow into the sonic ones: on one side Giorgio Distante’s trumpet in “If You Want” (melodic and vertical) and on the other Valerio Daniele’s guitar in “Tears And Lights” (burning and corrosive). The meaning of this first work is found in the Japanese name of the trio, indicating something ‘slightly dark’ and mysterious like shadows. Because what is unknown is what counts,” continues the pianist, journalist, and music critic. “The musical logic (the constructive technique) achieves these results because it never forgets that it must also be illogical (the emotional side). Therefore, changeable by its very nature. This is why the trio’s pieces are circles that do not want to close: they have a beginning but might not have an end (the kaleidoscopic “Interludio/Picture #1”). Inspired at times by two models of progressive jazz – on one side the Americans Bad Plus and on the other the Swiss Nik Bärtsch – the three find in the musical design of the ostinato the right stylistic anchor in which writing, improvisation, and interpretation are all daughters of an undisputed expressive freedom.

Of the two definitions that Bärtsch coined for his music, Ritual Groove (the other is Zen Funk) is particularly suited to this journey where the metronomic beat, which guides cyclical rhythmic cells, has the dual role of holding back and releasing. Changeable to the boundaries of hypnosis, these tracks – sometimes carriers of a sensation of ‘dynamic calm’ with a pervasive melodic imprint – follow the principles of repetition and reduction through the horizontal progression of interplay. In which the collective is a unit divided into three.”