Julien Daïan Quintet, Alex Tassel – September Nine (Spotify)

EN - Loose cannon innovator of French Jazz Julien Daian is back at the helm of the Julien Daian Quintet for their third album CUT-UP, 10 tracks creating a deeply personal montage drawn from influences and experience, of emotions and memories, of landscapes and longings. True to form he steers Jazz forms into uncharted waters in collusion with Hip Hop, heavy electronic beats, hypnotic tribal rhythms, reggae touches and always an unstoppable groove. How do you make three “Groundbreaking” albums in a row? Ask Julien Daian, CUT-UP proves he knows exactly how it’s done.

www.instagram.com/juliendaianquintet/

FR - Trublion du jazz, véritable alchimiste du son, Julien Daïan est de retour avec un troisième album résolument contemporain - fascinant brassage d’influences et de styles, à la croisée du jazz et des musiques actuelles. Sans oublier ce sens du groove qui pulse sur chacune de ces 10 nouvelles pistes.

CUT UP, is the third album from the Julien Daian Quintet (JDQ), led, of course, by Julien Daian, the audacious, reckless innovator who earned his stripes as the maverick of French Jazz. Incapable of compromise as he creates music of its time and place with the vocabulary of his own lived experience. Known for bringing Jazz into uncharted waters in collusion with Hip Hop forms, heavy electronic beats and hypnotic tribal rhythms.

Picking up the vibe and momentum of JDQ’s first two albums French Paradox and Behind the Reef, the ten tracks on CUT UP really break new ground, taking this vision, this compulsion to greater heights and ever deeper depths. This isn’t about fusion, it never was. The mastery lies in Daian’s supreme ability at divining the natural points of confluence between forms, where jazz, hip hop, dub and electronica merge naturally, creating a sound and a vibe that speaks eloquently of the moment it comes into being. Each track is a unique and vivid expression, an episode in an album that forms, as a whole, a varied and provocative freefall soundscape. A deeply personal patchwork, a montage drawn from influences and experience, of emotions and memories, of landscapes and longings.

Summoning a deeply sunny reggae vibe, through Jazz themed progressions, Daian remembers the Patate Records 45’s of his youth, bringing in Luciano and Mikey General on vocals to crystalize the magic on Bring Some Love, a call to the good times yet to come, an irrepressible expression of hope and the power of unity. While Everybody Love me is straight up and down Jazz informed Hip Hop (think New York with a Spike Lee twist) as North Carolinan Rapper Biship Chasten keeps the groove going against a sparse, edgy backdrop.

In the album’s debut single Trop C’est Trop (Too Much is Too Much) the spirit of Serge Gainsbourg is brought into play as his vocal from Ecce homo et caetera is woven through an urban smokescreen of ever intensifying mood and syncopation, and you just know he would have loved it beyond doubt. Right on the edge, an unstoppable, shuffling groove, a hint of a cult 70’s detective theme perhaps? Layer by layer, beat by beat, the menace moves forward as a tribal chorus illuminates the shadows it casts. A sound that could just as easily send the listener on an unknown highway as to the dancefloor.