Guy Thouin at 86 Leads Ensemble Infini on Debut Record for Cellar Music
Born in Montreal in 1940, Guy “Yug” Thouin co-founded Le Quatuor de jazz libre du Québec in 1967 and became the first drummer of Walter Boudreau’s L’Infonie from their 1969 debut. He appeared at the l’Osstidcho cabarets alongside Robert Charlebois, Louise Forestier, and Yvon Deschamps, toured the US with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens’ production of Tommy, and later spent extended periods in India studying mridangam and tabla. Subsequent decades brought collaborations with Sonny Greenwich, Steve Roach, and dance troupe La La La Human Steps, among others.
Artist: Ensemble Infini Guy Thouin
Release Date: 2026-05-01
Genres: Avant-garde, Experimental Music, Free Jazz
Label: Cellar Music
Description: Ensemble Infini debut Volume ∞ out May 1 2026 on Cellar Music. Montreal octet led by free jazz drummer Guy Thouin. CD, digital, 2xLP.
The album is out on Cellar Music on May 1, 2026 (CD and digital) and August 7, 2026 (2xLP).
Ensemble Infini formed in 2022 when guitarist and Mardi Spaghetti member Raphaël Foisy assembled a group around Thouin for an outdoor screening of Roger Frappier‘s 1974 documentary L’Infonie inachevée at Montreal’s Festival du nouveau cinéma, with 72 hours’ notice. The following year the group formalized and performed at FIMAV, where critic Kurt Gottschalk described the set in the New York City Jazz Record as an intelligent reworking of the big band format with lineage traceable to Mingus. The octet’s methodology pairs Elyze Venne-Deshaies‘s arrangements with collective refinement in rehearsal, drawing on Thouin’s compositions across every decade of his career.
Volume ∞ was recorded in 2024 at Studio Dandurand and Studios de Rouen in Montreal. Alongside Thouin and Venne-Deshaies, the lineup includes saxophonists Félix-Antoine Hamel and Andrea Prochazka Mercier, trombonist Scott Thomson, pianist Belinda Campbell, bassist Pablo Jiménez, and Foisy on guitar and synths. The fourteen tracks are primarily Thouin originals, supplemented by group improvisations, Hamel’s “Requiem & Fanfare (pour Peter B.),” and Yves Charbonneau‘s 1969 piece “Halloween à Québec.” Concert fragments, late-night synthesizer overdubs, and studio treatments pushed the record into more psychedelic territory than initially planned. Cover art is by visual artist Marie Lemieux; liner notes by Eric Fillion, author of Soundtrack to the Revolution: Free Jazz and Leftist Nationalism in Quebec 1967-1975 (Véhicule Press, 2025).
Retrofurista is a site on design, interesting things, audio visual arts, and food.
Discover more from RetroFuturista
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
