Ying Wang — RE:Wilding

RE:Wilding collects together five works from German-based Chinese modern composer Ying Wang. Her work often blends and blurs both formal instrumentation and electronics, as well as different genres, to an often dizzying effect.

This release appears on the always-worthy Austrian label Kairos Music. The CD comes presented in the label's house style packaging- a digipack with an attached glossy/ colour inlay booklet. This runs at forty pages- in English and German texts- taking in full bios of both Ms Wang and the players, as well as write-ups about the pieces featured.

The five works featured here date from between 2019 and 2022, with runtimes between eight and hearing twenty one minutes.

The material moves from “Noctilucent- I” which is for a double bell trumpet and live electronics. It’s a mix of baying avant jazzy tones, shadowy/ lightly seared ambience, with moments of jagged glitch. Onto “Schmutz” which is for Volin and Ensemble. This seesaws between thick and brooding pressing horn, sneering and sudden swiping/ swooming sting work.

The release plays out with “Copyleft” for string quartet. Here we find a violently jagged & rhythmically unpredictable sonic landscape of plucking, sawing, slicing, and devilish swooning string tones.

There is a great sense of tension, edge, and at times manic playfulness about Ms Wang's work. Making RE:Wilding a release that will appear to those who like their modern classical more unpredictable and seared.