Yong Yandsen is a Malaysian tenor saxophonist who, among other things, has collaborated with the Norwegian rhythm section of bassist Christian Meaas Svendsen and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love. The trio’s second album – follow-up to their 2019 debut – was recorded live on tour in 2022 and rips straight out of the gate with the kind of brutal, clobbering energy Nilssen-Love is so good at churning up, Svendsen roiling at the bottom end and Yandsen slotting into an almost comically high altissimo squeal like Sweep from the Sooty Show having a raging tantrum.

But it quickly pulls a surprise move by dropping into pure silence – a stark space gradually and tentatively populated with Yandsen’s muttered stutters, Nilssen-Love’s gentle gong pings, and Svensen’s airy shakuhachi tones and growling throat singing. The album’s longest track, the 21-minute ‘Mountain valley bowels full of grime,’ begins with an extended double bass solo that alternates between intense sawing and percussive thwacks and seems to employ several different bows at once.

Both inquisitively questing and never too far away from an honest-to-God, full strength firestorm, it’s rare to find such a nuanced and convincing balance of delicate, introspective free-improv and cartoonish free-jazz Sturm und Drang.