A piano meditation on modern melancholy

Pianist and poet Ju Xiaofu released his new album, Mist Without, worldwide on July 10.

The recording is Ju's first new release since joining Deutsche Grammophon China (DG China) this April.

Mist Without grew out of Ju's long-standing fascination with Chinese "Misty Poetry", a literary movement that conveys reality indirectly through atmosphere rather than statement. Meaning unfolds gradually between images, making ambiguity not an escape from reality but a way of revealing it from a different perspective.

In shaping the album, Ju also drew inspiration from the German word Weltschmerz — a lucid awareness of the world's suffering and imperfections, accompanied by enduring melancholy and empathy that follow. In the album's Chinese context, "without" refers to the world beyond the self, while "mist" evokes a state of searching, capturing both the tangled workings of the mind and the indistinct nature of reality. Together, Mist Without becomes what Ju describes as "hearable obscurity" — remaining lucid amid uncertainty and tracing the contours of the inner self through silence and resonance.