YUGEN Turns Silence Into Cinema on Picture #2

# YUGEN Turns Silence Into Cinema on *Picture #2*

### The award-winning Italian trio pushes contemporary jazz beyond easy classification, building an instrumental world of minimalist structures, chamber-like intimacy and images that exist only in the listener’s imagination.

**By Richard Head | KJAG Radio**

Italian trio **YUGEN** does not make the kind of jazz that politely sits in the background.

It waits.

It breathes.

It creates space.

Then, almost imperceptibly, it begins constructing a world around the listener.

That philosophy sits at the heart of ***Picture #2***, the latest album from the Salento-based contemporary jazz trio of **Katya Fiorentino on piano, Stefano Compagnone on bass and Maurizio De Tommasi on drums**.

Released through **Filibusta Records** with international radio promotion beginning June 25, 2026, *Picture #2* exists somewhere between contemporary jazz, chamber music, minimalism, subtle electronics and cinematic composition. Comparisons to artists including **Tord Gustavsen Trio, Nik Bärtsch, GoGo Penguin, Portico Quartet and Nils Frahm** provide useful reference points, but YUGEN is clearly interested in developing its own vocabulary.

The group describes the record as something resembling **“cinema without a screen.”**

That may be the most accurate description.

There are no lyrics on *Picture #2*, and the musicians insist there were no predetermined images behind the compositions. Instead, the goal is to create enough musical space for the listener’s own images to appear.

“Yugen’s music does not describe images; it makes them possible through essential structures, repetition, minimal variations and suspensions,” the trio explained.

“The sound creates a perceptual environment in which something can emerge, without ever being imposed.”

In other words, *Picture #2* is not a soundtrack searching for a movie.

The movie happens inside your head.

## Three Musicians, One Musical Language

YUGEN traces its beginnings to **2020**, when the three musicians came together for what was originally a conservatory thesis concert centered on Northern European jazz.

That performance revealed something more important than an academic exercise.

The chemistry worked.

“We realized that we enjoyed playing together and decided to keep going,” the trio recalled.

That deceptively simple beginning eventually developed into a musical partnership built around collective listening rather than individual virtuosity.

Piano, bass and drums may represent one of jazz music’s most traditional configurations, but YUGEN approaches the format differently. There is no permanent leader demanding that the other instruments remain in supporting roles.

Instead, the group describes itself as a **“dynamic balance between three musical visions.”**

“The focus is not on the individual musician, but on the music itself,” YUGEN said. “Each piece takes shape through direct exchange in the rehearsal room, where ideas are questioned, transformed and stripped down to their essence.”

That philosophy can be heard throughout *Picture #2*.

The instruments frequently feel less like three separate voices competing for attention and more like components inside a single evolving mechanism.

Music Built From Small Ideas

One of the most interesting elements of YUGEN’s compositional process is how little material may be required to begin a song.

A piece can originate with a melodic fragment, harmonic idea, rhythmic gesture or other small musical “cell.”

From there, the trio begins experimenting.

And experimenting.

And experimenting.

Rehearsals become part of the composition itself.

“The trio builds over time, rehearsal after rehearsal, week after week, allowing the material to transform through mutual listening,” the musicians explained.

“There is no fixed, closed form of writing, but rather a process that is itself an integral part of the outcome.”

Ideas are layered, removed, reconsidered and sometimes pushed toward unexpected destinations.

That approach is especially apparent in **“From the Bin to the Sunrise,”** one of the album’s focus tracks.

The title turns out to be unusually appropriate.

The band initially threw the piece away.

“We initially discarded [it] because we felt it wasn’t going anywhere,” YUGEN revealed.

The composition eventually found its direction, however, and was further developed with the contribution of **Alessandro Dell’Anna**, following an idea from producer **Valerio Daniele**.

A piece that nearly disappeared became one of the recordings selected to introduce listeners to the album.

Sometimes the garbage bin really does lead to sunrise.

## The Sound of Silence

YUGEN’s music also depends heavily upon something musicians are frequently tempted to eliminate:

Silence.

On *Picture #2*, silence is not dead air between important moments. The silence *is* one of the important moments.

“Silence is space—the space between sounds, between intentions, between choices,” the trio explained.

“For us, it is not an absence of sound, but a time for exploration, presence and listening.”

That philosophy gives tracks such as **“More Than Meets the Eye,” “Time,” “Picture #2”** and album closer **“Petricore”** room to develop without being rushed toward obvious climaxes.

The music rewards patience.

Instead of immediately announcing where a composition is going, YUGEN allows a piece to slowly reveal what it wants to become.

## What Exactly Is Yūgen?

The band’s name offers another key to understanding its philosophy.

**Yūgen** is a Japanese aesthetic concept often associated with mysterious, subtle or profound beauty—something that can be experienced more easily than it can be completely explained.

That ambiguity attracted the musicians.

“We were drawn to the concept of Yūgen as an untranslatable word, a feeling evoked by wonder and beauty,” the group said.

“That is what led us to choose this name for the band: the need not to look for an explanation, a ‘translation.’”

That idea carries directly into the music.

“We let the music speak for itself, through any emotion, doubt, question or answer, without necessarily needing to give a name to everything.”

For an instrumental group, that philosophy is particularly important.

Without lyrics telling audiences what they are supposed to feel, the listener becomes an active participant.

YUGEN does not view that as placing a burden on its audience.

Quite the opposite.

“We strongly believe that music can express more than words,” the trio said. “It is not about placing a responsibility on the listener, but about giving them the freedom to create their own deeply personal narrative.”

## Mediterranean Roots, Northern Shadows

There is another fascinating contradiction running through the music.

YUGEN comes from **Salento in Southern Italy**, an area associated with Mediterranean warmth, rhythm, color and light.

Yet much of YUGEN’s work possesses the spaciousness and restraint frequently associated with Northern European jazz and contemporary minimalist composition.

The band readily acknowledges artists such as Tord Gustavsen, Nik Bärtsch and others as influences.

But influence, they argue, can only go so far.

“Every human being carries their own past, their different experiences and their geographical and social background,” YUGEN explained. “All of these elements make one musician different from another and ultimately shape a unique musical identity.”

That tension may be one of *Picture #2*’s greatest strengths.

There is warmth underneath the restraint.

Light underneath the shadows.

Mediterranean roots underneath a musical landscape that sometimes seems to be staring toward Scandinavia.

## Producer Valerio Daniele Helps Shape the Journey

The album was produced and engineered by **Valerio Daniele** and recorded at **SudestStudio in Guagnano, Italy**, before being mixed and mastered at **Chôra Studi Musicali in Calimera**.

According to YUGEN, Daniele’s role went far beyond simply capturing performances.

“Valerio is a musician of immense experience and sensitivity,” the trio said, “and these qualities allowed him to fully understand Yugen and become a fundamental support for the band’s human and musical journey.”

That journey began on the band’s debut album, ***Tears and Light***, recorded in 2022 and released by Dodicilune Records.

With *Picture #2*, the musicians believe their development is evident not simply in individual performances, but in how the trio thinks collectively.

“On this second album we made more deliberate choices, with a greater focus on variety in both composition and sound,” they explained.

“The real evolution, above all, has been in the way the pieces were developed and matured and, naturally, in the growth and maturation of the band itself.”

## Recognition Arrives

That evolution has not gone unnoticed.

In June 2026, YUGEN won **L’Artista che non c’era** in the instrumental category.

The trio previously won the **2025 Premio Carlo Gargioni** in the jazz category, reached the finals of the **Teano Jazz Contest**, became finalists in the 2024 edition of L’Artista che non c’era and won the **Forum Live Jazz Festival Contest** in 2022.

For musicians working in territory that deliberately avoids straightforward genre definitions, those honors provide something valuable: confirmation that somebody is listening.

“They are important sources of encouragement that help us keep moving forward on a very challenging and difficult path,” YUGEN said.

## An Album That Wants You to Return

*Picture #2* contains nine instrumental compositions:

**“The Night Spoke to Me,” “From the Bin to the Sunrise,” “When Order Fell in Love with Chaos,” “Risveglio di settembre,” “The Diver U-Bow,” “Picture #2,” “More Than Meets the Eye,” “Time”** and **“Petricore.”**

Taken together, they create an album that refuses to dictate exactly what the listener is supposed to experience.

That might be the point.

YUGEN has described itself repeatedly as a journey rather than a destination. Each album represents another stage of that journey, with no guarantee about where the next one will lead.

Asked what the trio hopes someone discovering YUGEN for the first time will feel after the final note of “Petricore,” the musicians offered perhaps the simplest answer of the entire conversation:

“Without a doubt, the desire to listen to our music again.”

With ***Picture #2***, there is a very good chance they will.

**YUGEN is Katya Fiorentino — piano; Stefano Compagnone — bass; and Maurizio De Tommasi — drums. *Picture #2* is available through Filibusta Records and distributed by I.R.D.**