London-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and producer Emma-Jean Thackray follows up two breakthrough EP recordings, including 2018’s Ley Lines and Rain Dance, which was released earlier this year, with a brilliant direct-to-disc session on the Night Dreamer label, titled Um Yang.

Raised in Yorkshire, Thackray inherited a grounding in Taoism from her father, and approaches her music with the same pursuit of harmony between Um & Yang. For this two-track recording, she applies this practice to her music. On the opener “Um,” Thackray takes the listener on a musically journey from spiritual melodies backed by funky dual percussion grooves, to built up free improvisations and chanting vocals. On the flip, “Yang” is basically reversed in it’s structure, beginning even further out before concluding in a more meditative peaceful state.

Both tracks were recorded in one-take at Night Dreamer’s all analogue recording studio Artone in Haarlem, The Netherlands, which according to Thackray was absolutely key to this recording, “All the instruments were natural, woods and metals, no plastic in sight, and everything was to be hit or blown, all analogue. I really needed everything to be natural and real, because the music is about the universe, about the energy of all things, and what is more real than that.”

A number of other incredible musicians are featured on the session, including highly acclaimed saxophonist Soweto Kinch, and Steam Down’s Wonky Logic on percussion, as well as Lyle Barton on rhodes, Ben Kelly on sousaphone, Crispin Robinson on congas, and drummer Dougal Taylor.

Overall, Um Yang is a spiritual and yet a sonically explosive session, in what arguably is Emma-Jean Thackray’s most personal and adventurous recording to date.

Emma-Jean Thackray — ‘Um Yang’
(Night Dreamer)

1. UM 음
2. YANG 양

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