Dominic Miller - Diana

Dominic Miller’s fourth album for ECM finds the storyteller-guitarist reminiscing in lyrical waves, creating striking chamber dynamics and subtle dialogues in exchange with a quartet of close colleagues. The album is dedicated to and named after Miller’s mother Diana, who passed away in February 2026. Like Vagabond before it, the autobiographical nature of the project drives a particularly gripping sense of melancholia into the music and musicians’ performance. Dominic: “It seemed like the right way to go, naming this album after my mother. My last album, Vagabond, was dedicated to my father. “Vagabond” was his favourite poem. So Diana just felt right – obviously she was a huge influence on my life. And if people ask me why Diana, then it gets me talking about my mom. And in a day in 2026, I think it’s okay to say that you’re a bit of a mum’s boy (smiles).”

On the album, Dominic fronts a quartet composed of long-time associates from varying ensembles, including his rhythm section from 2023’s Vagabond with bassist Nicolas Fiszman and drummer Ziv Ravitz as well as Argentinian bandoneon player Santiago Arias, whose gracefully textured playing could already be heard on Absinthe (2019). Here the foursome conspires in deep listening and spontaneous connection, traced across carefully constructed forms with evocative, poignant melodies. 

“I feel very privileged to have arrived at this point with these musicians,” Dominic says, pointing out each musician’s particular gift and role in the ensemble. He calls Santiago “a ninja sort of black-belt-guru type,” capable of adapting to any given situation but also always contributing the unexpected with what seems like the experience of a lifetime. “Even back before I’d ever talked, let alone played with him I knew that I wanted Santiago on my next album just by his demeanour, by this sort of martial-art-kind-of-coolness that he has. And it’s so important to have musicians who have that sort of wisdom…”

Santiago’s contributions are sparse but essential throughout, adding rich colour alongside Dominic’s often rippled guitar-themes on songs like “Jazz Hotel” and the wistful “Alta Loma”, while bringing lush washes and plaintive melody to the more atmospheric tunes, as heard on “Rita”, “Al Dente” and “Vegas Dreaming”.  The brightly strummed “Millionaire” is another standout, with Santiago’s bandoneon wrapping soothing lines around Dominic’s acoustic guitar.

The seamless chemistry between the leader and his other partners on the album is equally crucial to DIANA’s success. Ziv Ravitz has been part of Dominic’s live band for several years, being more of “a painterly drummer than a strict beat-keeper”, according to the guitarist. “He’s a great improviser for a start. And he always surprises me with what he’s going to do because he never ever plays the same thing twice and I never know what I’m going to get. He’s also a very instinctive player with amazing ideas that just flow constantly. I need to have a drummer who’s got that kind of imagination.”

Like yin to yang, Nicolas Fiszman, Dominic’s bassist of over 20 years, contrasts Ziv’s flowing pulse with firm and popping low-end, grounding the group with flexible but decisive lines. Limpid in tone and exacting in time, his strings intertwine with Dominic’s playfully on “Only You”, guide them with pop-sensibility on “Pigalle” or “Timeless” and lend the album’s closer “Iguazu” an ambiguous darkness with the low D on his five-string being a prominent junction.

“He’s to me, kind of what I am to Sting,” Dominic explains. “It gives me the privilege or the luxury of not having to remember all my catalogue when I’ve got someone next to me who’s like my lieutenant. I can call on him to engage any particular tune in any key, and he’ll have it down from the get go. He thinks in tightness and precision, but he’s also not afraid to go ‘off piste’, take a risk and surprise me, which he does constantly.”

Recorded at Studios la Buissonne in the South of France in December 2024, the recording was produced by Manfred Eicher. Elaborating on Eicher’s producer-role for the session – beyond his reputed vision for the recording’s sound – Dominic also emphasises how, “out of the thousands and hundreds of thousands of ways you could have programmed this album, Manfred probably picked the only sequence that completely works.”