Orion/Mother

Alex Zhang Hungtai’s new double album Orion/Mother, a brave, gigantic burst of life, creativity, and abstract balladry, alchemizes the past and the present, sampling home recordings he made with some of New York’s finest improvisers while spontaneously composing on top of them with trumpet and other instruments. Zhang’s trumpet is the “grounding force” and conceptual narrator of Orion/Mother, allowing Zhang to decontextualize, process, and reconcile with the past through abstract lyricism in the present. It’s the sound of an artist addressing unresolved fragments from his past, integrating them into the present, and building a new path.