Canadian, Québec-based prolific and always versatile guitarist-daxophone player-composer René Lussier continues to reinvent himself, now with a new quintette, releasing its debut album on his own his own label PasUneCenne and the French label Circum disc. The quintette offers s a unique instrumentation – two drummers, Robbie Kuster and Marton Maderspach, accordionist Luzio Altobelli, tuba and euphonium player Julie Houle and Lussier himself.
Lussier began to work with this quintette in December 207, kept rehearsing it on a regular basis and recorded it over four days studio sessions in Montréal in February 2018. He sees the quintette as a work in progress, a unit that experiments a challenging sonic aesthetics. In this quintette everyone is a soloist. All explore his Lussier modular pieces, overlaying their own personal interpretations of his compositional ideas. Compositional themes and improvised segments blend into and extend each other in an organic interplay. And roles are constantly shifting in a variable geometry of functions, so that each part can be shared by the whole band. In short: a recipe that pushes all out of any comfort zone into their outer limits.
And it works beautifully. The quintette has its experimental side, sometimes even a dadaist one as on «Groove D’enfer», but it swings and it rocks, has an infectious groove and a strong and passionate folk flavor. Furthermore, it sounds as all had great fun playing Lussier set of ten imaginative, playful compositions, with great focus on detail, a sense of humor and irony as on the complex «Céphalopodes». Lussier himself is in top form and has few outstanding solos on the electric guitar and the daxophone. And the most beautiful composition her, the dramatic «Migrations» that encompasses all sides of the quintette, emphasizes how great art and real life are inseparable.
Lussier says that this projects is a new milestone in his career. «It embodies a breath of fresh air, and there’s nothing more I would like than to share it with you!» Trust him.
Eyal Hareuveni
René Lussier (g, daxophone), Luzio Altobelli (acc), Julie Houle (tuba, euph), Robbie Kuster (dr), Marton Maderspach (dr)
