Cinephonic Refuge

It's one of those miserable grey stormy days, but you're safe and sound in your warm downtown apartment, curled up by the window, with a steaming hot drink, staring out at the rain-soaked mayhem unfurling in the streets below. There's a record on. Hard to tell what it is. The muffled piano, woody upright bass, quivering vibraphone, mellow guitar and sweeping brush drums all seem to be playing intricate, oblique, mid-century jazz, but the tunes also sound as if they've been flipped into hip-hop instrumentals, maybe by a Madlib, or a Nujabes? Is this some obscure Japanese anime soundtrack? Or a new reimagining of some jazz label’s back catalogue? Who knows... Man, it's really coming down hard out there. You carefully take another piping hot sip of your drink, grin, and start head-nodding approvingly.

Welcome to Cinephonic's "Refuge".

For the past seven years, Cinephonic has been an outlet for the cinematic musical creations of Pierre Chrétien, also known for his work leading groups such as The Souljazz Orchestra and Atlantis Jazz Ensemble. On this third outing, he eschewed the soulful mellotronic soundscapes of debut "Les Paradis artificiels", as well as the epic orchestral ambitions of sophomore "Visions", and instead decided to bring things back to basics, attempting his first record with a humble jazz trio.

Taking on piano, vibraphone and guitar duties himself, Chrétien joined forces with frequent collaborators Philippe Charbonneau on double bass and Mike Essoudry on brush drums - the three had been playing together off-and-on since their student days, a good twenty years ago, so the trio's chemistry was already well established.

However, this was not to be another run-of-the-mill jazz trio record. After the combo laid down an entire album of original compositions during a series of fruitful studio sessions, Chrétien then used the resulting jazz recording as a sample source, and flipped it into a bona fide lo-fi hip-hop record, layering on additional drum beats, atmospheric samples and sparse turntablism. "I wanted to keep the hip-hop elements still kinda subtle, to preserve the essence of the music," explains Chrétien. "The idea is to add another artistic dimension to the sound, while keeping things raw, and avoiding anything too slick, or gimmicky, or commercial sounding."

"Refuge" is Cinephonic's 3rd album and is released by Marlow Records in vinyl LP, CD, and digital formats on April 25th 2025. The album was meticulously mastered to Studer B67 2-track analogue tape by Jason Jaknunas at Metropolitan Studios. Vinyl LP format is pressed in Canada at Precision Record Pressing's state-of-the-art facility.