Hayoung Lyou - The Myth of Katabasis (2024) [Hi-Res]

Music balances on the edge of time. The vast space of possibilities expands up and out, always a moment's breadth past the fingertips. And down below, the deep underworld of the past, seductive and concrete, tempts us to judge and indulge rather than imagine and create. Through the horizon between past and future cuts the blade of music. Then, a tiny fraction of what is possible falls through the Stygian wound and hardens. Temples and mountains have arisen from the droppings of this fight; no one can deny the shadow-casting beauty that stands tall and proud in the past.

It takes a hero's bravery to plumb those depths, to face all of what has been, but still come back up to fight for more, to insist on more creation. The musician is the hero who declares, "No. There is not enough music in this world yet."

Hayoung Lyou is the kind of hero who will descend all the way down and then reach back up with all of her strength. Not a stupid, fearless hero, but one who turns fear into energy. A hero whose reverence sets a high bar to cross. Ms. Lyou was born in the 1990s — think of the preceding century she inherited as a pianist-composer! Mystical, syrupy Russian piano music; a Pythagorean renaissance of mathematical organization in composition; the fusion of the Blues, romanticism, and hard-fought freedom into jazz; recording technology, computation, and telecommunication exponentiating the rate of information flow. Why do anything at all, let alone the audacious act of freezing your imagination into a musical recording? After all, you could steal a terabyte of music, pour a meal into a cup, and bliss out ’til the end of your life. Take it easy. Detach.

Ms. Lyou shows us another type of detachment, more noble and inspiring. She plays — and God, listen to her play — and then she lets the music hang in the air. She lets the microphones crystallize the otherwise fleeting energy of her soul. She puts out records, which, believe me, feels like prostrating yourself naked to a world of could-be haters. Why? Because there is not enough music in this world yet. Hayoung Lyou is the kind of hero who, in one breath, tells Scriabin, Ellington, and Dallapiccola, "You didn't do enough."

Heroic indeed. Insane? Perhaps. But she is right. Music's fight against entropy and silence is never won. Ms. Lyou's music shines light on the writhing dark corners of musical structure where unsafe and unstable ideas lurk. She's the kind of pianist that will get you to dance with a snake. The kind of composer that will show you your lover's face in a purple bruise. Take a drink — you just might find a taste for the shadowy brew she serves up.

Does the expressionistic irony of Weimar-era theatre and opera make you laugh through your tears? Can you find a cloud in front of every silver lining? Can you appreciate a well-tied, sturdy noose? Then this is the jazz for you. This is the composition, the drama, the sound-world for you. Dance in the moonlight; break a glass. Follow this hero's journey; let her wrap you up... and there's the black-widow trick! Ms. Lyou's just-now afterimage, this record, forms yet another piece of architecture just down the Styx. I dare you not to look and listen — I don't have the strength, but, then again, I'm no hero.

-- Jacob Shulman