Since her emergence as a vital member of Steve Coleman's bands in the 2010s, vocalist Jen Shyu has gone on to flourish as an artist in her own right. Her quartet Jade Tongue comprises stellar US musicians: trumpeter Akinmusire, viola player Maneri, bassist Morgan and drummer Weiss, who all cohere powerfully on the leader's deeply personal and inventive material. While Shyu is rightly celebrated as a fearlessly experimental artist with both a unique timbre and propensity to beguiling structure there is also a very communicative, if not accessible slant to her character that vaguely resonates with what the great M Nahadr playfully called ‘commercial free jazz.’

The skipping rhythms, twirling counterpoint and vibrant energy of ‘Living's A Gift Part 4 Joyful’ is the epitome of that, and Shyu's expertly layered vocals could be subversive cousins to a Baccharachian choir. Yet the central conceptual premise of the work is the alarming disconnect between humanity and nature, the chilling vision of a world with no grass, which has a thought-provoking sub-text of decay and barrenness, for both people and planet. Racism and police brutality are part of this, hence there are songs that are stark in ambiance and taut in arrangement. ‘Lament For Breonna Taylor’ and ‘When I Have Power’ are both harrowing chronicles of the scourge of bigotry in American society that are made all the more compelling for the way Shyu blurs the line between spoken word and sung vocal, making the distressing lived experience of being called a ‘chink’ all the more immediate.

Her accompanists perform with appropriate potency and subtlety but Shyu defines this work and the urgent lyrical content with all the conviction of a modern-day Abbey Lincoln or Jeanne Lee. Strong statement from an artist who is carving out her own unique space on the landscape of creative music.