OHNomad and Leon Hsu’s “A Fund Manager” is a four-track EP that asks a strange question: what does doubt sound like on a piano? OHNomad is the moniker of Owens Huang, a composer who also manages a hedge fund, and Leon Hsu is the award-winning Taiwanese jazz pianist and improviser who turns Huang’s ideas into something you can hear breathing.

I expected spreadsheets. I got a parlor.

The EP never pretends to be a trading floor. Instead, it treats an investment decision and a jazz improvisation as cousins, two acts that demand conviction while leaving a door open for surprise. That idea sits quietly under every bar.

“Contrarian” opens in Romantic-period clothing, a tender melodic line drifting with delicate ornaments above a steady harmonic pulse. It is an evening piece, reflective and poetic, and the title makes me grin: the contrarian move here is gentleness.

Then “This Time is Different” plays a trick. It starts slow and expressive, almost cautious, before snapping into ragtime, all syncopation, playful trills and a leaping bassline that refuses to sit still. Anyone who has heard those four words in a market meeting will recognise the sudden swagger.

“Stay Neutral” is the calmest of the ragtime turns, cheerful and lilting, a lead line strolling up and down the scale over steady chords. It carries the vintage charm of an early 20th-century parlor, the kind of room where nobody panics.

“Stay Neutral Stay Longer” stretches that mood, opening in a contemplative, meandering haze before rapid runs arrive and dance over an alternating bass. Jaunty, spirited, a little mischievous. Equanimity, it turns out, has a sense of humour.

What lingers is the temperament. Hsu’s playing has the fluidity of someone deciding in real time, and Huang’s concepts give each piece a quiet argument about following the crowd versus trusting your own ear.

So here is the thing I keep chewing on: if keeping calm under pressure sounds this playful, why do we spend so much of our lives bracing?

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