Personnel:
Sébastien Joulie (g), Stéphane Moutot (ts, ss), Pierre de Bethmann (p), François-Régis Gallix (b), Charles Clayette (d)
Reference: FSNT-543
Bar code: 8427328435437
"My only previous exposure to Joulie’s music came via his 2014 Fresh Sounds debut Green Waves, which featured US saxophonist Walter Smith III. A prime mover in the Lyon Jazz Collectif, the guitarist here fronts a new band which brings together some of his regular collaborators; although ostensibly an all-European affair, the throbbing heartbeat of contemporary New York undoubtedly beats within the group’s music. Deploying just the faintest smidgeon of distortion, Joulie has a sound somewhere between Adam Rogers and Kurt Rosenwinkel. In Moutot he has a suitably robust and expansive foil, though the usually stellar De Bethmann often appears outmuscled by the feisty drumming of Clayette and deep, woody low-end presence of Gallix.
Evincing a palpable sense of musical progression, the music of Resilience is structurally loose without being un-centred. Listeners are immediately thrown into the maelstrom with the ambiguous tonality and fractured meters of Time Tabloid. Old Matters pays a slyly revisionist homage to the classic jazz ballad tradition, the title track is a curious shapeshifter distinguished by some wonderfully articulated tension and release, and Massive Boozer is a raucous Mingusian blues that heads straight for the jugular. The mechanical chatter underpinning Joulie and Clayette’s offbeat arrangement of Green Chimneys is as enchanting as it is unexpected, and makes a strong contender for a standout track. East Of The Sun, the album’s only other cover, is comprehensively deconstructed and rattles off with seemingly unstoppable momentum. My slight reservations about De Bethmann’s disappointingly muted presence aside, Joulie’s group play some thoughtful and inventive post-bop with more than enough gusto to stand out from the pack."
Fred Grand
Jazz Journal (April, 2017)
