out: August 15th, 2025 on Chaos Space
Cursed Month (败 月) is the vibrant debut album from guitarist and composer Lingyuan Yang. It acts as an emphatic statement of intent, dropping several facets of Yang’s varied artistic practice into a bold, energetic whole.
Here, Yang leads a pugnacious trio where his rapid fretwork is bolstered by the intensity of pianist (and Chaos Space co-founder) Shinya Lin and drummer Asher Herzog, both of whom are based in New York City, which Yang recently departed for the Netherlands. Together, they integrate a diverse array of different stylistic elements and approaches into their burly, brooding jazz sound. And where other outfits of a similar bent have ended up indulging a ravenous pluralism that can seemingly never be satiated, Yang and his bandmates pit their eclecticism against the very framework they seem to operate within.
Back when Mahavishnu Orchestra launched their first album in 1971, heavy metal and jazz fusion were both still new and radical propositions separately, let alone blended. Thus, when JohnMcLaughlin and company brought massive amplified sonics to the intricate virtuosity of jazz, they ignited an enduring curiosity with this amalgam. Since that moment, numerous artists have probed this Venn diagram in different ways—everything from taut, angular, composition-forward music to raucous, freeform maelstroms.
Cursed Month seems to embrace both proggy precision and heated improvisatory exchanges, yet one of its most interesting features is how the trio manages to evoke metal-informed electrified aggression despite Yang shunning overdriven guitar altogether. In fact, it’s Shinya Lin’s thunderous, Taborn-esque abstraction that provides much of the band’s low-end heft, while Yang’s prickly quarter-tone lines make frantic, fleeting allusions to bebop licks and all-out shred alike. When electronic processing does enter the equation it’s often more dramatic in character, transforming Yang’s sharp plectral attacks into granular swarms, disfigured plastic percussion, or the scurrying of small robotic creatures. Asher Herzog’s role in the record’s heavy tenor is not to be underestimated. He summons towering sonorities from his kit while carefully wrangling Yang’s dense, furious rhythms, yet the album also leaves little doubt as to his capacity for subtlety. Between the bouts of pummelling ferocity, many passages illuminate his vast colour palette and range of touch.
Cursed Month (败月) is a term drawn 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. It serves as both a conceptual and structural anchor for the material on this record. This suite builds a world that’s unsettling and inscrutable, yet teems with violent youthful fervour.
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Photo by Lok Ling Chung
Born in 2001, Lingyuan Yang’s output spans contemporary music to avant-garde jazz, free improvisation to electronic music. He holds a BFA from The New School, where he was mentored by the likes of Eric Wubbels, Christopher Otto, Ingrid Laubrock, Anna Webber, Matt Mitchell, and Peter Evans, some of the most important figures in experimental music. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in composition at the Royal Conservatoire The Hague.
Among Yang’s principal creative interests is the topic of tuning systems. Quarter-tone guitar is a key part of his creative arsenal as a performer and his string quartet compositions The Heart of Ge’Nyen and Interference, (both performed by JACK Quartet) derive their harmonic richness from Just Intonation. In April 2025, his piece Yin-Yang for wind and string quartet was premiered by the Mannes American Composers Ensemble (MACE). In addition to the artists heard with him on the present recording, Yang has also collaborated with Joe Morris.
Shinya Lin is a New York City–based performer and composer whose current research centres around lifeinformed, gestural, and ubiquitous music—drawing from the sonic textures of daily experience and weaving them into creative practice. Lin is part-time faculty at The New School and co-founder of Chaospace, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to supporting and curating the work of Asian artists. Lin has received numerous accolades, including the NAMM President’s Innovation Award (2021), a DownBeat magazine feature for Motions, his 2022 collaboration with drummer Francisco Mela, and the grand prize in the Justine LeBaron Artists Competition (2017). In 2023, he was invited to speak at theAsian Music Industry Festival at Berklee College of Music. Lin has collaborated with numerous leading artists including William Parker, Yoshiko Chuma, Dennis O’Connor, Billy Martin, Ingrid Laubrock, Tony Malaby, Yuhan Su, Anna Webber, Matt Mitchell, Zoh Amba, Lesly Mok, Sam Newsome, Lichin Li, LeoChang, Melissa Almaguer, Stephen Gauci, Ken Filiano, and Ye Huang. He has appeared at venues including The DiMenna Center, Dizzy’s Club, Roulette Intermedium, The Jazz Gallery, MoMA PS1, Birdland, and Klavierhaus.
Versatile Brooklyn-based drummer Asher Herzog is active as both a leader and sideman and has been heard alongside the likes of Tim Berne, Billy Martin, Wendy Eisenberg, Drew Gress, Ellery Eskelin, John Dierker, Derrick Michaels, and Adam Hopkins. Herzog holds an undergraduate degree from Towson University where he worked under Frank Russo and Dave Ballou. He also studied privately with Tim Berne, Ches Smith, Kris Davis, Gerald Cleaver, and Tom Rainey.
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Lingyuan Yang : CURSED MONTH
out: August 15th, 2025 on Chaospace (CD/DL)
genres: avant-jazz, progressive rock, microtonal
RIYL: Naked City, Horse Lords, Kate Gentile, Art Zoyd, Extra Life, Sonny Sharrock.
Tracklist:
1. Ritual Fire
2. Moondial
3. The Song of the Mist
4. Send Off The Ghosts
5. Spring Snow
6. Bloodstain
7. The Sound of the Mountain
Line up:
Lingyuan Yang — guitar and electronics,
Shinya Lin — piano,
Asher Herzog — drums
© & ℗ 2025 Lingyuan Yang. Mixed and mastered by Zijie Li.
Produced and edited by Lingyuan Yang. Art and design by
Lingyuan Yang and Yiduo Liu