(Translation from Croatian) 
  
Jason Kao Hwang is the leader of numerous compositions with unusual performances. Burning Bridge in 2012 was named one of the best albums, his octet playing a combination of Chinese and Western instruments. Furthermore, he works with the quintet Sing House (violin /viola, trombone, piano, bass, drums), trio Amygdala (violin /viola, djembe/percussion, gayageum), string orchestra Spontaneous River, and quartet Edge. He most aspires to the violin as his go to instrument and to jazz as a general stylistic expression, and moreover often cooperates with numerous musicians and composers such as Will Connell Jr., Pauline Oliveros, William Parker, Anthony Braxton, and Yoshiko Chuma. 
  
His jazz is a distinct and highly original statement in which the most prominent is improvisation. This very long album of nearly 100 minutes in musical terms, rather abstract to the limit where experiments are being transformed into the avant-garde, but he doesn’t depend only on the orchestration of eight musicians (Piotr Michalowski, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Sang Won Park, Taylor Ho Bynum, Andrew Drury, Ken Filiano and Jason Kao Hwang himself) but to these 13 compositions he adds the most human instrument - two completely different vocals. Male and female. With him, in his Edge Quartet are Bynum, Drury and Filiano. 
  
Dividing the material exactly into two sections, "Lifelines" interpreted by the mezzo-soprano Deanna Relyea, otherwise known as a one-woman cabaret singer in the American Midwest and Canada, currently working as a guest at the Niagara-On-The-Lake Chamber Music Festival and on this Hwang project, which was later performed at John Zorn’s venue, The Stone in New York.  The first part of the album brings an exciting and much unexpected vocal content. 
  
At first with the start of the first theme "Nocturnal," one would think that the album would go into a post-modernist classical mode. Deanna Relyea sings a bit with an operatic voice, she whispers, then she plays with the spoken-word technique, and accompanying musicians are experimenting with improvisations to the extreme then continuing with lucidity in "Vertigo" with twisted sounds of trumpet, and all sorts of piercing and screeching, introducing a concrete jazz only in the third, "Someone" with the cabaret atmosphere of blues. And every so often walking away and like tracing an abstract painting from pillar to post, not holding onto any strict principles of jazz, but indeed, this is jazz. 
  
The second part, "Words of Our Own," with eight tracks are interpreted by the idiosyncratic baritone Thomas Buckner, whose wonderfully mad vocalizing is in turn grotesque, manifesto-like, poetic and subtle spoken-word enunciation that comes from the experience of his over four decade career. In those 50 minutes musicians are somewhat quieter and the tempos less prominent, and the music is expressed increasingly through staccato pentatonic string instruments at the expense of melody and standard postulates. 
  
In both cases the composer utilized the poetry of six poets (Lester Afflick, Fay Chiang, Steve Dalachinsky, Patricia Spears Jones, Yuko Otomo and David Singer), which is a interpreted by strong vocalizing full of street speech, slam-techniques, synthetic links with the world, history and circulating fluidized time contemplated in excellently designed avant-garde art-jazz. Very inspired work for demanding listeners with skillful developments shows how each process of blending pure poetry can be configured in a truly imaginative analog implementation. And not the kind of halfhearted effort like Iggy Pop's rendition of Whitman's “Leaves of Grass” and the band Enablers who do not even know where to go from “countless” experiments that have become ends in themselves. 
  
Horvie, terapijanet.com 
Evolution of the album:  9/10


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Original text

Jason Kao Hwang je vođa brojnih sastava s neobičnim performansima. Burning Bridge je 2012. proglašen jednim od najboljim vlasnikom albuma na račun svirke kao okteta s kombinacijom kinesko-zapadnjačkih instrumenata. Nadalje, radi u kvintetu Sing House (violina/ viola, trombon, piano, kontrabas, bubnjevi), triju Amygdala (violina/ viola, djembe/ udaraljke, gayageum) i ima gudački orkestar Spontaneous River i kvartet Edge. Sam najviše pretendira violinu kao domicilni instrument i jazz kao općeniti stilski izričaj, te osim toga često surađuje još s brojnim glazbenicima i kompozitorima poput Will Connell Jr.-a, Pauline Oliveros, William Parkerom, Anthony Braxtonom, Yoshiko Chumom... 
  
Njegov jazz je osebujnog i nadasve originalnog izraza u kome najviše do izražaja dolazi smisao za improvizacije. Ovaj vrlo dugačak album od gotovo 100 minuta je u glazbenom pogledu prilično apstraktan do granica gdje eksperimenti prerastaju u avangardu, međutim on se ne zadržava samo na instrumentalizaciji osmero glazbenika (Piotr Michalowski, Joe McPhee, William Parker, Sang Won Park, Taylor Ho Bynum, Andrew Drury, Ken Filano i sam Jason Kao Hwang) već je ovim 13 kompozicija dodao i najhumaniji instrument - dva posve različita vokala. Muški i ženski. Njegov Edge kvartet uz njega čine još Bynum, Drury i Filiano. 
  
Upravo tako i podjelivši materijal na dva podnaslova "Lifelines" kojeg interpretira mezzosopranistica Deanna Relyea, inače poznata kao one-woman kabaretistica po američkom srednjem zapadu i Kanadi, momentalno radeći kao gošća za Niagara-On-The-Lake Chamber Music Festival i na Hwangovom projektu za John Zornovu rezidenciju The Stone u New Yorku, taj prvi dio albuma donosi uzbudljiv i nadasve neočekivan vokalni sadržaj. U prvi mah bi se pomislilo kada krene prva tema "Nocturnal" da će album otići u postmodernističku klasiku. Deanna Relyea malo pjeva opernim glasom, malo šapuće, pa se malo poigrava spoken-word tehnikom, a prateći glazbenici eksperimentiraju improvizacijama do besvijesti nastavljajući lucidnošću u "Vertigo" s uvrnutim zvukovima trube, kojekakvim nabijanjem i škripovima, da bi se u konkretni jazz ušaltali tek u trećoj "Someone" s kabaretskim ugođajem bluesa. I tako svako malo odšetavaju šarajući s apstrakcijama od nemila do nedraga ne držeći se nikakvih striktinih načela jazza, ali kako god, ovo jazz jeste. 
  
Drugi dio "Words of our own" s 8 tema koje interpretira čudak bariton Thomas Buckner gotovo ridikuloznim glasom na razmeđi groteske, manifesta, književne večeri i suptilnog spoken-worda rezultat je njegove karijere koja traje više od 4 dekade. U tih 50-tak minuta glazbenici su nešto skuliraniji i mirniji u tempovima, a do izražaja sve više dolazi i staccato pentatonika gudačkih instrumenata na uštrb melodičnosti i standardnih postulata. 
  
  
U oba slučaja korištena je poezija šestoro pjesnika (Lester Afflick, Fay Chiang, Steve Dalachinsky, Patricia Spears Jones, Yuko Otomo i Davida Singer) koja je snažnom vokalnom interpretacijom puna uličnog govora, slem-tehnike, sintetičkih poveznica sa svijetom, poviješću i kurentnim vrtložnim vremenom kontemplirana u vrsno oblikovan avangardni art-jazz. Vrlo nadahnuto djelo za zahtjevne konzumente vještim krivuljama pokazuje kako se svaki sličan proces pretapanja čiste poezije može konfigurirati u istinski maštovitu analognu realizaciju. A ne onakve polupokušaje poput Iggy Popovog sricanja Whitmanovih "Vlati trave" ili benda Enablers koji niti sami ne znaju kuda će od onolikih eksperimenata što su postali sami sebima svrha.

Horvie, terapijanet.com  
Evolution of the album:  9/10