Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts Breaking The Wall

Guillaume Coutu Dumont has been unstoppable over the past three years. Since releasing his debut album, Face À L’Est, on Montreal’s Musique Risquée label in 2007, the Montreal-born Berliner has released a steady stream of EPs, remixes and compilation tracks for Circus Company, Musique Risquée, Oslo, Cocoon and many more. He’s also kept up a nonstop touring schedule, wowing crowds the world over with a dynamic live show that never sounds the same twice. Throughout, he’s developed one of the most distinctive styles in contemporary house music—a deep, powerful and original fusion of Afro-Latin percussion, instrumental melodies, soulful vocals, and intricate rhythm programming. Now, with his new album Breaking the Fourth Wall, he takes another big step forward. From dark-and-stormy basement jams to Ethiopian-tinged fantasias, from Afrobeat to ambient house, Breaking the Fourth Wall finds Guillaume venturing far beyond the limits of 4/4 boompty-boompty. He set himself the added challenge of making the album sound as much like the work of a live band as possible. To do so, he availed himself of a close community of musician friends, beginning with dOP, recording in their Paris studio. (In a sign of a true two-way collaboration, they’ll feature their own version of the resulting track, “Can’t Have Everything,” on their next album, re-titled “Assurance Vie.") Dave Aju recorded the vocals for “On the Lips” in his San Francisco studio. Switzerland/Zaire’s Dynamike, whom Guillaume met at the Montreux Jazz Festival, brings an Afro-beat feel to “Radio Novela.” Guillaume’s longtime collaborators Marc-André Charbonneau, Sébastien-Arcand Tourigny and Nicolas Boucher all feature on various tracks, playing guitar, saxophone and Rhodes. Even Guillaume’s brother, the photographer and video artist Gabriel Coutu Dumont, turns up on guitar on “Discothèque.” Together, these and other ferociously talented musicians help translate Guillaume’s musical vision into a living & breathing hole in the wall.