Yang / A Complex Nature
Album: A Complex Nature   Collection:General
Artist:Yang   Added:Dec 2004
Label:Cuneiform Records  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2005-01-16 Pull Date: 2005-03-20
Week Ending: Mar 20 Mar 6 Feb 27 Feb 13 Feb 6 Jan 30
Airplays: 1 1 1 1 1 2

Recent Airplay
1. Feb 16, 2006: Multiple Personality Disorder
Les Deux Mondes
4. Feb 24, 2005: Multiple Personality Disorder
Orgueil
2. Mar 17, 2005: Loud Music For Quiet People
Impatience
5. Feb 09, 2005: The Panoply
Compassion
3. Mar 03, 2005: Multiple Personality Disorder
Les Deux Mondes
6. Feb 03, 2005: Multiple Personality Disorder
Les Deux Mondes

Album Review
Ragnar of Ravensfjord
Reviewed 2005-01-03
Yang is a French instrumental prog/fusion quartet. Their sounds are sometimes going into heavy fusion & prog then shifting into traditional guitar-based jazz moments. Overall, it’s a pretty solid mix of techique and prowess without being very excessive. So, you won’t find much wanker-oo playing on here - if they know when to stop a pattern when it doesn’t work and keep it going when it does.
((((1)))) Loud, harmonic-laden guitars, heavy prog ‘ala King Crimson - so much so that guitarist Frédéric L’Epeé makes liberal use of the Fripp-ian styled note extensions.
(((2))) Long, repeated cycles of riffs mixing a clean jazz vibe and a louder tone which gets slightly trance-inducing but the better side of this comes in the last half of the piece - where there’s more variation.
(((((3))))) Hard-rock like opening notes then more of a straight-ahead melodicism that’s created like a regular song structure. The tones jump around from jazzy, to proggy, to even bordering on heavy metal or at least 70’s hard rock.
((((4))))) Quiet , slow strumming ‘ala indie rock like Codeine or Bedhead mixed with a slight improvised feeling. Some great note bending by L’Epeé. Lots of beautiful sounds abound.
(((5)))) Bass-heavy, rolling jazz-fusion both exemplorary playing by bassist Stéphane Bertrand (who brillaintly solos at: 2:25) and L’ Epeé.
((((6)))) Uptempo jazz-groove strumming that also has starts with tonalites that reach back to early rock n’ roll. The rest is more on the groovy jazz side that is a lot of fun to listen to.
((((7)))) Harder, heavier riffing with again a nod to Fripp & King Crimson, upbeat but staying most straight-ahead with some nice harmonics at 3:42-3:21. Some nerd on the web’s review says this track features “a near heavy metal assault”. It’s neither heavy or metal nor assaulting but don’t let that prevent you from enjoying this number.
(((8))) Sounds like parts of this could’ve been a TV theme song or part of a movie soundtrack from the 80’s. Catchy, riff/note patterns all around sounding a tad like instrumental indie rock mixed with King Crimson and some of the better 70’s jazz-fusion

Track Listing
1. Les Deux Mondes   5. Manchild
2. Souterrain   6. Impatience
3. Seducteur Innocent   7. Le Masque Rouge
4. Compassion   8. Orgueil