Bassist Billy Mohler reunites with his deeply exploratory jazz quartet on 2022's Anatomy. Mohler's third solo album (also counting 2019's Black Friday TRio), Anatomy follows 2019's Focus and again finds him in deep interplay with his collaborators -- saxophonist Chris Speed, and Kneebody members Shane Endsley on trumpet and Nate Wood on drums. A graduate of both Berklee College of Music and the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at UCLA, Mohler has carved out a distinctive niche, moving deftly between session gigs with pop artists like Kelly Clarkson, Liz Phair, and Dolly Parton, to production work with bands like the Airborne Toxic Event, to his more expansive work as a member of the Jimmy Chamberlin Complex. All of which is to say that Mohler is vastly accomplished with a wide-ranging stylistic ear. With his acoustic quartet, however, he keeps things stripped down to the basics, playing a textural brand of probing, avant-garde modern creative jazz. It's a sound that evokes the work of classic groups like Ornette Coleman's quartet and Charles Mingus' mid-'60s ensemble with Eric Dolphy. While Mohler's group certainly swings, his originals are often deceptively straightforward, built around menacing bass and drum grooves that sound more like something you'd hear at a hip-hop show than a jazz concert. "Fight Song" has a roiling, minor-key bassline over which Speed and Endsley paint ever darker-hued melodies before chasing each other with bold squawks and frenetic multi-note runs. Yet more languid is "Perseverance," a slowly moving and narcotic piece that sounds like Duke Ellington's "Caravan" played through a haze of smoke. While much of the album was purportedly recorded in single takes, there are subtle moments of studio magic, as on "Nightfall," a kinetic Latin-meets-drum & bass number that Mohler kicks off with what sounds like a strummed bass chord repeated with an analog-delay pedal. With Anatomy, Mohler has crafted an intimate small group jazz album played with a raw, punk-like immediacy. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi

1		Abstract 1
2		Fight Song
3		Nightfall
4		Equals
5		Abstract 2
6		Perseverance
7		Exit
8		Abstract 3
9		Speed Kills
10		Moonglow