Sometimes, music is not merely to be heard; it demands to be seen. This is certainly the case with “Picture #2”, the second release from Yugen—a trio from Salento returning to redefine the boundaries of contemporary jazz with a work of extraordinary evocative power.
While their 2023 debut, “Tears and Light”, established the contours of a sound that was both geometric and profound, this new work moves with even greater confidence across improvisation, electronic textures, and—above all—a distinct aptitude for composing music that evokes imagery.
The gravitational center around which the entire album revolves is Katya Fiorentino’s piano. Her touch—exquisitely elegant yet free of superfluous academic affectation—sets the emotional agenda for the tracks. Fiorentino does more than simply weave melodies; she creates spaces, opens up shafts of light, and then, in an instant, shifts to a mood that is dark, intimate, and almost cinematic.
It is a piano-driven narrative that seems to be in constant dialogue with an invisible film—a “cinema of the soul” that leaves it to the listener to project their own mental images. “Picture #2” is an album of masterfully balanced contrasts, where the urgency of jazz marries the temporal expansiveness of ambient music.
Moving around this vital core is a monumental and unconventional rhythm section: Stefano Compagnone crafts bass lines that serve as true structural foundations, capable of shifting between a minimalist pulse and a dark, enveloping sonic bed. Maurizio De Tommasi, meanwhile, uses his hybrid drum kit to shift the album’s axis toward the future. The interplay between acoustic and electronic elements creates asymmetrical grooves, microscopic beats, and digital flourishes that break the trio free from the clichés of the classic jazz piano trio, propelling them into the warm soundscapes of Northern European electronica (inevitably evoking the spirit of the late Esbjörn Svensson Trio or GoGo Penguin, yet infused with a distinctively lyrical Mediterranean sensibility).
The true triumph of “Picture #2” lies in its balance. The electronics never feel like a burden or a hollow special effect; instead, they serve as a color on the palette—a texture that blends seamlessly with the piano’s wood and the bass’s strings. The tracks unfold like sequences in a long, continuous shot: starting from a mere fragment—an idea comprising just a few chords—they gradually layer up, build in intensity, and finally fade away into a veil of mystery.
Yugen have created a mature, nocturnal, and deeply evocative album. “Picture #2” confirms that the trio from Salento possesses not only extraordinary technical proficiency but, above all, a rare gift: the ability to tell stories without the need for words.
A must-listen for anyone who loves music that lets the mind travel while wide awake. (Andrea Rossi)
