Springing from a decades deep body of work, defined by a rigorously singular and adventurous approach to sound, cellist, composer, and improvisor, Okkyung Lee, returns with Yeo-Neun, her first outing with Shelter Press, and arguably her most groundbreaking and unexpected album to date.

A vital, present force in the contemporary global landscape of experimental music, Okkyung Lee is widely regarded for her solo and collaborative improvisations and compositions, weaving a continuously evolving network of sonority and event, notable for its profound depth of instrumental sensitivity, exacting intellect, and visceral emotiveness. Yeo-Neun, recorded by Yeo-Neun Quartet - an experimental chamber music ensemble founded in 2016 and led by Lee on cello, featuring harpist Maeve Gilchrist, pianist Jacob Sacks, and bassist Eivind Opsvik - represents the culmination of one of longest and most intimate arcs in her remarkable career. A radical departure from much of the experimental language for which she has become widely known, it is equally a fearless return.

Yeo-Neun loosely translates to the gesture of an opening in Korean, presenting window into the poetic multiplicity that rests at the album’s core. Balanced at the outer reaches of Lee’s radically...  more
credits
released May 8, 2020

Harp: Maeve Gilchrist
Cello: Okkyung Lee
Bass: Eivind Opsvik
Piano: Jacob Sacks

Composed and produced by Okkyung Lee (ASCAP)
Recorded and mixed by Jeff Cook at 2nd Story Sound Studio / Linden Underground
Mastered by Rashad Becker at D+M
Photographs by Ron Jude from Other Nature, 2007
(Kingman, AZ l Calistoga, CA l Marfa, TX)

Special thanks to John Chantler