Gabriel Vicéns – Niebla (Clepsydra Records, 2026)

By Nick Ostrum

Gabriel Vicéns first came to my attention with 2024’s Mural, which itself was a big step in the young guitarist and composer’s musical evolution. That album marked a turn from the Latin-tinged modern jazz of his previous work toward modernist and postmodernist classical traditions. Niebla finds Vicéns with a sextet with whom he has years of history, but, as far as I can tell, has never stretched so far into this blended, abstract musical territory, at least together. The crew includes saxophonist Roman Filiú, pianist Vitor Gonçalves, bassist Rick Rosato, and the double percussion section of E.J Strickland and Victor Pablo, in addition to Vicéns himself on guitar.

On Niebla (fog), Vicéns and crew simultaneously take a step further out and a step back to Caribbean traditions. For some a split like this would tear at the ligaments of conviction. Here, the group shows rare agility in pulling it off. The album has a lot going for it. Influences range from contemporary jazz to especially Feldman and Cage-inspired classical to Puerto Rican and Cuban rhythmacism. Now, new music and driving rhythm may seem anathema to each other. Throw in some jumpy bop lines (I cannot shake the feeling that some of these phrases are slightly laggard takes on Salt Peanuts, or something like it), Filiú’s and Vicéns entangling lines (I hear nods to Metheny in the latter), Gonçalves’ seasoned restraint, and a wildly pulsing rhythm section and one might think the resulting stew could never settle properly. But it does.

The jauntier fusion numbers here – Niebla, Stray Dogs – lay into that kaleidoscopic description above. The more patient pieces – 900-50-80, Guaiza – strike an unexpectedly convincing balance between repetition, abstraction, and gradualism. The odd time signatures and especially the polyrhythmic drumming add to this, hinting at phasing and free jazz arrhythmia. So too do the moments when the band spans the gap between old and new, or indigenous and hypermodernist practices, as in the scratchy güiro solo about nine minutes into the vertiginous Ramaje. This one runs from some Escherian hive of staircases to noirish jazz (with a solo by Strickland worthy of Andrew Cyrille) to straight-up New York minimalism to the barest of güiro scrapes and rasps framed by silence, or, as the listener’s ears remain perked, an aural fog of what preceded and anticipation of what might come next. In that, Niebla is liminal, resting on the boundary between traditions and, in its various twists and turns, eschewing complacency in any given moment or direction.

Nieblais available as a CD and download here.