Label: Sunnyside Records, 2026
Personnel - Mat Maneri: viola; Lucian Ban: piano; John Hébert: bass; Randy Peterson: drums.
Avant-garde violist and composer Mat Maneri is known for blending fragility and crisp friction within a subtly discordant, microtonal approach to music. Mist is the final installment of a trilogy that includes Dust (2019) and Ash (2023), continuing its exploration of heavy, noir-like textures that evoke grief and misery. His quartet features longtime associates: pianist Lucian Ban—who contributes four of the album’s eight compositions—bassist John Hébert, and drummer Randy Peterson.
The new album, unrelentingly gloomy, unfolds through a free-flowing discourse, with capriciously oblique gestures creating a sense of erudition and intimate vulnerability. Maneri’s “Through a Mist Darkly”, whose title nods to Ingmar Bergman’s emotionally complex drama Through a Glass Darkly—and also recalls the piece of the same name that Maneri recorded on the 1996 album Three Men Walking with his father, saxophonist Joe Maneri, and bassist Joe Morris—is wrapped in a melancholic veil. This pensive, lyrical meditation extends into his shadowy and grief-stricken composition “Achlys”, which references the Greek goddess of misery and mist. Here, Maneri injects greater tension and movement into his playing while Ban explores dreamy atmospheres before expanding into imaginative avant-garde flourishes.
Ban’s “A Piece of God” emanates a grateful serenity, revolving around a recurring thematic phrase over which Maneri’s tearful viola tremolos pierce the heart with quiet forlornness. The pianist also contributes “Mist”, an elusive tone poem anchored by Hébert’s spacious bass figure and Peterson’s understated drum colors, and “Paul Motian”, an abstract, floating, and exploratory homage to the late drummer, opening with bass and drums alone. Curiously, Maneri—who has long shared an affinity for Motian’s singular musical language—had already included a composition titled “Motian” on Dust.
Mist takes listeners out of their comfort zone as the quartet glides seamlessly between pitches with remarkable impressionistic finesse. Its main weakness lies in its unwavering devotion to a single atmosphere, offering too little contrast over the course of a slow-burning, 50-minute meditation that demands considerable patience from the listener.
Favorite Tracks:
03 - Achlys ► 04 - Mist ► 08 - Missed