Grand Couloir - Stamina (2022) Hi Res

"Stamina" means as much as perseverance and is a fitting title for the debut album of Grand Couloir, because the five musicians in Berlin have known and appreciated each other for a long time. Keyboarder Volker Meitz, tenor saxophonist Dirk Steglich, trumpeter Christoph Titz, bassist Roland Fidezius and drummer Tilo Weber have succeeded in creating a highly individual sound that often seems as risky as playing with fire. "We've known each other for a long time and have already played together in a wide variety of constellations," Volker Meitz summarized their past experience. "This band has also been around under a different name for a long time, but we decided that it was finally time for an album."

Grand Couloir creates sensitive ballads and fast-paced fusion sounds, acid jazz snippets and dub swaths, soul jazz grooves and reggae sounds, free sound research and spacey electronics without the band sounding like an indefinable general merchandise store. There are recognizable influences that have affected the more or less long musician lives of the five without the personal individual styles having to be given up or warped in short, "Stamina" is a musical cornucopia that is unparalleled.

"We recorded the album as a quintet in the studio, but the electronic sounds were created in post-production," Volker Meitz explained. "We discovered the desire to play with sound. Roland and I in particular have a strong interest in special sounds, which we then extended to the complete production. But the essence of the sound is already there live." Dirk Steglich, who can also be heard on bass clarinet and flute on the album, rubs his saxophone sound against the trumpet sounds of Christoph Titz and both prove to be emotional storytellers in the ballads of the album, who also skillfully interact over the casual reggae groove of "We'll See". In other songs, Grand Couloir recalls the sounds Miles Davis explored in the 1970s. "We simply like the possibilities of pulling the sound completely in a different direction and flirting with electronics," Volker Meitz confirmed. "Eclectic is definitely a term that fits us."