Clara Yang: xmachina
Bright Shiny Things

Naturally calling to mind Alex Garland's Ex Machina, itself a gripping meditation on transformative technological advances in AI, pianist Clara Yang's xmachina likewise explores how technology is affecting the creative practices of both composer and performer. Much as Garland's film explores the interactions between a human being and an artificial simulation, Yang's project considers the way the acoustic piano, a percussive machine-like conduit for profound human expression, might interact with other non-acoustic phenomena within musical contexts. She smartly anticipates the future without stripping away foundations that allow us to feel grounded and secure.

Xuan's unsettling cover image—an enlarged, symmetrically treated photo of an insect form coupled with psychedelically mutating forms—evokes the unease felt by many at the daily encroachment of AI into our lives; no one should fear the music on Yang's Bright Shiny Things debut, however, which is audacious but easy on the ears. Compositions by established figures (Reena Esmail, Philip Glass, Christopher Cerrone) appear, as do world-premiere recordings of Yang-commissioned pieces (Lee Weisert, Stephen Anderson, Liliya Ugay, Phil Young, Allen Anderson). Yang even contributes a composition of her own, as well as a collaboration co-credited to her and hip-hop artist Suzi Analogue. Produced by Mathew Snyder, the material was recorded at Moeser Auditorium, UNC-Chapel Hill between July 2023 and April 2025.

On Esmail's Crystal Preludes, piano's augmented by a Cryoacoustic Orb sound installation created by Weisert and Johnathon Kirk whereby underwater microphones captured the sounds of slowly melting ice inside “lighted polycarbonate orbs.” Within seconds, the juxtaposition of acoustic and non-acoustic elements renders the album theme into physical form whilst also highlighting Yang's impressive pianism. Weisert's much longer Clinamina, the title referencing a term for the swelling movements of atoms, effectively blends acoustic and machine realms by merging a Debussy prelude fragment, spidery piano runs, and clusters of echoing chords with the rumble and flutter of machine-processed sounds. Picking up where Clinamina leaves off, Young's RoboDream strikingly couples elements of ragtime, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich with android-associated gestures. That the allusions to the composers are so discernible doesn't make the piece any less satisfying. Alluding to the piano's mechanical architecture, Ugay's hammers over the moon unfolds as a vibrant conversation between the acoustic instrument and electronics. Fascinating too is how fluidly the composer works blues inflections into the dazzling constellations produced by the piano and electronics.

Some pieces eschew electronics for a pure pianistic presentation. To create Drones, Stephen Anderson drew for inspiration from the sounds generated by unmanned aerial vehicles. A hint of jazz seeps into the material as Yang wends her adventurous way through the composer's wide-ranging terrain. What comes through more pronouncedly, however, are the vitality of her performance and jaw-dropping command of the keyboard (much the same could be said of her rendering of Allen Anderson's tumultuous Think that's you). Pulling back ever so slightly from the aggressive dynamism of Drones, Yang's own towering Nebula opts for a gracefully flowing design that has more in common with the oceanic music of Debussy than anything else. While he was early on an iconoclast, Glass is now a revered elder whose steadfast, decades-spanning dedication to the new music cause can't help but be inspiring to younger artists. His Etude No. 11 doesn't incorporate electronics but instead alludes to mechanistic practices in the relentless repetition of its patterns and rhythms. Yang, as she does throughout, distinguishes the composer's material with an ultra-enthusiastic treatment. As a pianist, there's nothing, it seems, she can't do.

As successful as the other pieces is the collaboration between Yang and Analogue. Often forays of this kind are well-intentioned but ultimately less satisfying musically; in this case, however, Analogue's beatmaking adds much to Deep ConditioNN Redux. Moog synthesizer and funky drum machine beats lay the groundwork for Yang's nimble piano to dance across, which it breezily does for four widescreen minutes. Concluding an album with a piece by Cerrone is never a bad idea, and Yang smartly selected his electroacoustic piece Hoyt-Schermerhorn as the set-ender. Composed in 2010 and titled after a Brooklyn subway station, the piano shimmers under Yang's fingers, the music's meditative aura and repeated ascents amplified by the reverberations emanating from the chords.

June 2026