Label: Sunnyside Records, 2019
Personnel - Mat Maneri: viola; Lucian Ban: piano; John Hébert: double bass; Randy Peterson: drums.
Mat Maneri is an avant-garde viola player with a penchant for exploring melodies in the vicinity of atonality, and whose approach spans from tearfully mellow to dauntlessly stark. He can brag about his combined efforts with improvisational champions such as Cecil Taylor, Paul Motian, Ivo Perelman, and Evan Parker, but for this new outing, Dust, he commands a quartet composed of pianist Lucian Ban, bassist John Hébert, and drummer Randy Peterson, his longest collaborator.
Regardless the laid-back nature of this often loose and melancholy opus, you know you’ve entered his realm from the moment you hear the opening track, “Mojave”, a slow, pensive poem of translucent lyricism. The distinctive crepuscular tone of the viola, often bordering on the dissonant yet never completely clashing, contrasts with the melodiousness of the piano, while the unfasten lower level results from a combination of soft, unpredictable drumming and spineless bass forms. Ban penned this one.
Many of Maneri’s pieces share this dramatic rubato touches within just-before-dawn textures. The reflective “51 Sorrows”, for example, is submerged in melancholy, doing justice to its title. Ban’s piano stroll doesn’t go unnoticed as he implants colored cadenced phrases in the uniformly ashen global tapestry. The introverted “Red Seven” exposes Hebert’s slides and wide intervals in its introductory phase. Although pretty active in the brushwork, Peterson still corresponds most of the time with the languid line of thought followed by his co-workers. But you'll find more soothing textures, cheerless nostalgia, and vulnerability scattered throughout pieces such as “Losed” and “Retina”, both favoring mournful cries and long breathable bass notes, and also on the noir-tinged “Last Steps”, an old composition whose intensity is considerably stepped up near the end in order to briefly kick the dominant torpor.
The completely improvised “Motian” pays tribute to the exquisite drummer/composer Paul Motian, and just like his music, is not interested in obvious resolutions but rather in suspensions and volatility. In truth, its mood is not so different from the other tunes on the album.
In addition to the aforementioned opening tune, the highlights are the feathery “Two Hymns”, another Ban's composition, which touches upon modern classical beauty, and the concluding “Dust”, another improvisation whose overlapping layers are shaped as recombinations of several elements presented over the course of the session. There’s a mildly spicy Indian flavor in it, but all results in a sort of lovely, icy stillness.
The marvel of this record is the offbeat ambiance created by each piece. For those who are able to find beauty in both abstraction and desolation sounds, this is a valid choice.
Grade B
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Mojave ► 05 - Two Hymns ► 09 - Dust