Will Regnier: Traces

Montreal-based drummer & composer Will Regnier's recording debut, Traces, paints an atmospheric soundscape. It could be a score for a science fiction Western movie, the accompaniment for scenes of a rider under an alien lavender sky, his mount a sturdy quadruped species, neither equine nor bovine, but something different. Low vegetation rises in prickly clumps in an array of otherworldly colors. Miles Davis' In a Silent Way (Columbia, 1969)—an album which has always sounded like something which sailed in from the far reaches of the galaxy—comes to mind Traces has the galactic feel, too, starlight blinking on with each guitar and piano note, star clusters and luminescent nebulae appearing in each glowing chord.

Regnier employs a piano, guitar, bass & drums quartet. Folk music motifs sparkle up. Crunchy and progressive hard rock chords assert themselves. The arrangements are intricate ear-grabbers. Unpredictability prevails.

The quartet is a cohesive entity which forms a unique collective personality via the blending of the musical voices of some of Montreal's finest musicians—Marcus Lowry on guitars, Yannick Anctil on piano, bassist Alex Le Blanc, with Regnier holding down the drum chair.

The title tune—in a batch of nine compositions which play out as a cohesive collection—was composed ten years before the recording of Traces and put into a drawer for lack of a suitable project. Then Regnier decided to shape an album around it. It was a fine idea. That album turned out exceptionally well.